10.18.07
Can you tell me who’s in command here?
In keeping with my cultural focus, today will be a look at parenting and a bizarre twist in the relationship between parenting and schools.For all you parents out there, I’m looking for your input here. I’m not a parent, so I’m only speaking from a common sense aspect here - that and I would never want my ability to be a parent taken away from me by schools.
With that much said, let’s get to the meat of the matter. A sudden surge in schools overstepping their bounds has come about recently, so much in fact that Pinkeyes has posted on it, rights groups have posted on it, it was on the radio this morning (download the podcast of that morning’s show)… It’s all over the news yet few people are looking beyond the headlines and realizing that something is going horribly wrong here.
As Tom Barnard said this morning, “it makes me want to vomit.” I’m not going to get into the school giving out birth control to 11-year olds. Pinkeyes already took care of that one for me, and he did too good a job for me to tread on his toes. However, along with that story, Tom Barnard and the KQ Morning show also addressed the story about the high school students who were given condoms when they visited the University of South Florida. According to the article:
“The condom came inside a clear plastic school supply bag with the University of South Florida printed on the front. Also enclosed inside the bag were other school supplies many of which had USF printed on them.”
Luckily, at least one parent was pissed off by this, and rightly he should be. This is a school overstepping its bounds and going too far. As Chrys Arianas, the father of one girl who received the condom in her school supply bag, puts it:
“Basically what they’re doing is undermining my personal values and my views of what’s right and wrong… I have very strict Christian values and to me the way I see it is there are certain things that are saved for certain moments. If you’re going to bring a child into a university you want to have a certain amount of trust in the university. It’s been lost.”
I’ll say. But the bigger question here is how it was ever seen as acceptable in the first place? This is indicative of a much greater problem. Are schools trying to replace parents as the caretakers of children? This is actually going far beyond the usual babysitting that schools perform and is treading terribly close to schools ousting parents out of the process of dealing with morals and values. If a 17-year old girl wants to have sex, let her be responsible enough to buy condoms. Don’t simply give them to her with the anticipation that she’s going to do it anyway. This also stems back to Pinkeye’s post on the middle school students getting birth control through their school. Should schools really be in the business of dealing with sex and birth control? Absolutely not - especially at that young of an age! That falls 100% on the parents, and it is not up to the schools to arbitrarily decide that not enough parents take care of business so they might as well step in.
What’s even more shocking is the lack of parental outrage over this sort of thing. Are that many parents really OK with surrendering their parental responsibilities to the school system? Getting back to Chrys Arianas, he asks:
“The big question is this, ma’am, why does it take a single dad to bring awareness up? Where are all the other families?”
And where are all of the other families? Where are the parents in all of this? What will it take to open parent’s eyes as to what is going on in the school system? I mean, how long will it be before Planned Parenthood starts opening up shop in schools and establishing partnerships? Will that get the attention of these parents? And of course, while so-called “professionals” are claiming that providing birth control to children doesn’t make them more likely to have sex, the rest of us down here on planet earth know otherwise. As it was put on the morning show this morning, “anybody who thinks that pregnancy isn’t a deterrent to children having sex is out of their mind.” You don’t think that 11,12,13-year olds aren’t terrified of the possibility of getting pregnant if they go out and start having sex? Now what happens if that fear is taken away by the schools? What happens now that there are no consequences to the actions?
Moving on, I also want to address the Madison Metropolitan School District “Wellness Policy” in public schools which bans the sale of sweet foods and beverages and regulates dietary aspects of all food sold at the schools.
I went straight to the source and looked up the so-called “Wellness Policy” to see what I could sniff out… And holy crap, these people have gone off the collective deep end here. If I were a parent, I would be outraged and insulted that a school district is taking over my parental responsibilities. I mean, when did schools take charge of a child’s diet? Last time I checked, it was up to the parents to establish good dietary habits, and if the parents allow their kids to drink whole milk (or even 2%) then that is their decision. However, the Madison district (in using the milk example) has banned all but skim and 1% milk. But it gets worse. Just look at some of the wording of this policy:
“Schools have a responsibility to establish an environment that models healthy food choices and to provide nutritionally balanced meals. Because the concept of balance is important for student decision making, sweets such as ice cream, cake and cookies are seen only as ’sometimes’ foods.
What?? “Sometimes” foods? Decision making? Who are these people? I thought they were educators, but it would certailny seem that they believe they are much more than that. They are trying to take the place of parents here.
The policy in its entirety is pretty wordy and prissed up with all sorts of feel good phrases like “Children and adolescents need access to healthful foods and opportunities to be physically active in order to grow, learn, and thrive.” While I certainly don’t disagree with the logic here, I do strongly disagree with the means. The sorts of things that they are trying to force upon the children are the things that parents should be dealing with at home. Working under the assumption that parents won’t do it so the schools might as well isn’t a good excuse for overstepping parental responsibilities here.
It would seem that the school district seems to think that their “Wellness Committee” knows better than parents when it comes to teaching their children good life habits. In turn, the schools aren’t allowed to sell foods or beverages that aren’t approved by the committee in vending machines, school stores, school-sanctioned events (i.e. sports games, dances etc), even fund raising sales are forbidden (i.e. no more selling candy bars to raise funds for that field trip). Of course, this policy also covers fat content along with sugar content, and their goal is to only allow foods that have 30% of their calories from fat by 9/2008 (it’s currently 35% as of this year).
Is this where we’re going? Parents (especially you new parents out there, I’m asking you to think long and hard about this. Is this OK? Is this sort of thing acceptable? Are you content to allow schools to hand out condoms and birth control? What about telling your children what they can or can’t eat? Are you OK with the schools setting your kid’s diet for you?
While we’ve all been out there watching our own rights stripped away from us by nanny state laws, our rights as parents have been quietly stripped away by the school system (who we dare not question due to the innate “golden calf” aspect of the school system). But maybe it’s time to strike back and remind the schools that they do not know best and that they should focus more on the educational aspect of being a school and less on being surrogate parents.
in2thefray said,
October 18, 2007 at 11:26 am
I posted on the Maine story.Indoctrination to strong a word ?
micky2 said,
October 18, 2007 at 12:55 pm
The California student civil rights act.
Check this out, its right up this alley.
I saw this on OReilly yesterday.
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.html?101607/101607_oreilly_california&OReilly_Factor&Crazy%20in%20California%3F&acc&Politics&-1&News&369&&&new
Nobody can say anything to anyone anymore. Unless its completely sterile of any reference to anything other than the most blande interpretations of the subject.
The PC atmosphere may be one thing we have to tolerate at work and in our government. But now California has placed it in their schools by means of this act which prohobits any student from making references to anything of race , creed or color and sexual orientation.
It allows the kids to sue the school and any dept or person connected for any percieved discrimination.
PERCIEVED!
We dont have these problems yet in Hawaii. The schools here for the most part leave things like sex education and ethical behavior up to the parents.
But you can bet your house that if this kind of crap that Ryan is talking about and this California moonbat endeavor ever crosses my sons path in school , I will be the first one down there raising hell and will probably get arrested on purpose just so the subject gets put on the front page.
We need to draw serious attention to the incrimental and gradual stripping away of our rights as parents and to be able to speak freely with out worrying about offending every hypersensative whiney little bitch there is out there.
We already had a bullying issue with my son at his school. The counselor called me and explained the situation and wants to have a meeting with this teacher and that counselor and the principal and the other kids parents and see if we can get to the root of the problem and bla bla bla.
My boy doesnt pick fights. I ve been told by everyone how remarkably well behaved he is. And I also told the school staff this.
I also told the school staff that I didnt have time for or see any purpose in this long dragged out over sensative fiasco that they wanted to engage in.
I let them know that I have given my son full permission to kick the living crap out of anyone who fucks with him. I know bullies very well. I was one of 3 white boys in a junior high school of 700. And this touchy feely crap put out by the staff never helped, it just made me look like a squeeler, and things got worse.
Just about everyone at my sons school knows me on a first name basis only because I am probably their favorite asshole.
And that is the way I want it.
As a parent I am hands on and will not leave anything up to the school except for the ABCs.
mpinkeyes said,
October 18, 2007 at 9:28 pm
I really do believe that the GOVERNMENT run schools are slowly but surely trying to take parenting away from parents in an attempt to indoctrinate them into liberalism. And they are succeeding.
This is part of the 10th plank of the communist manifesto:Free education for all children in public schools.
Scary, huh?
PheistyChick said,
October 18, 2007 at 9:40 pm
This is a tough one, Ryan. It’s not tough because I believe that the schools are correct in what they’re doing, it’s tough because as a society, we’ve allowed this to happen.
First off, parenting these days is piss poor. I mean, in general. Parents are way too consumed with either their careers, partying, doing drugs, their boyfriends or girlfriends, or various other irresponsible behavior that takes their focus away from the most important job they have: Raising kids to be responsible, respectable adults.
When divorce became rampant, and when having children outside of marriage (the “baby daddy” syndrome) became acceptable, parenting slipped further and further into a cesspool, and kids felt it. I saw it, you saw it, and teachers saw it.
Now, I’m not sticking up for teachers or schools, per se. What I’m saying is that I don’t think you or I fully comprehend what a teacher deals with from day to day. They have to deal with kids who have absolutely no parenting, and who are little hellions. They’re disrespectful and just plain naughty. I attribute this to bad parenting that resulted from the sexual revolution and self-indulgence in general.
Now, since the schools have more frequently been having to deal with these little monsters, and as the teachers saw the decay in society that was creating them, they saw the need to be a ‘parent’. However, they couldn’t strike or punish a child in any way as a parent would, or they would be sued. Instead, they take a ‘passive parent’ role.
I’m not excusing our schools for what they’re trying to do. But the bottom line is that we as parents have screwed up, huge. We haven’t realized how our actions have affected generations of kids. Because parents have screwed up so bad over the last thirty or so years, this opened the door for the school system - in some cases, the closest thing to parenting these kids get - to try to play ‘parent’ to these children.
Granted, there are plenty of children who do have good parents, and these are the ones who get so upset when schools try to ‘raise’ them (like me, and the dad in your post). However, if our society and parents in general were doing their jobs raising their children, we would never be having this conversation. As you asked, “Are that many parents really OK with surrendering their parental responsibilities to the school system?”. Yes, Ryan. Maybe it’s not that they are okay with it, though. I think they just don’t give a crap.
“Left thinking” is what got us where we are today. People have been too willing to accept illegitimacy, divorce, ‘hooking up’, and all of the other things that have reduced our society into a pile of garbage. In the name of ‘acceptance’, we have created generations of children who know no responsibility, or what it means to be a productive member of society. Instead, we have created monsters, who rely on schools and ‘mommy government’ to care for their every need.
This is so much bigger than I can even wrap my mind around. There are so many things that have brought us to the point we are at today. So how do we fix it?
Well, as a parent I can say that I just need to do the best I can to instill good values into my kids. Yes, they are going to be exposed to things that I don’t want them to be exposed to, but I’m hoping and praying that what I’ve taught them will stick enough for them to look at the condom package they receive on their first day of school, and shake their heads.
Will I put up a stink? You bet I will! I’d be on the phone with every school board member… No, I take that back… I’d march right into the school and raise hell. But in the end, it’s my responsibility to raise my kids properly, and with morals. I can’t control the world, but I can control how my child views it.
“The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world”, is the saying. Well, if parents aren’t going to “rock the cradle”, you’d better bet that someone else will.
Thanks for posting on this, Ryan. It’s a very important subject that needs discussing.
Joey
PheistyBlog » Blog Archive » "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle…" said,
October 18, 2007 at 11:41 pm
[...] fellow blogger, Arclightzero, had a great post this evening, about schools playing the role of ‘parent’ in our American [...]
Gary said,
October 19, 2007 at 8:21 am
Hello Arclightzero,
I’m a former K-12 teacher of the Emotionally Disturbed in the public school setting. What you are seeing happening in the schools has been going on for some time. The NEA has been pushing their membership very hard to remove the parental influence and in particular Christian influence from the children. It was part of their printed platform.
Yes, being a teacher is a sensitive juggling act as a few parents just will not step up to the plate. However, the number that does not step up is dwarfed by the number who do.
I am a parent of a school aged child. After one year in the public schools, we pulled her out of the public schools for homeschooling. We wanted to give our daughter a value system, not the schools.
However, there is a detail you are missing. The extent of the control is planted into the curriculum itself. Many aspects of it are designed to turn the children against the parents by using the “its in the textbook” approach to counter the values of the parents. It is pervasive in all areas of the curriculum as well. I delve into it on my website.
Keep up the good posts.
Gary
Joey @ Pheistyblog said,
October 19, 2007 at 9:10 am
Gary,
You made me think of the importance of pushing for vouchers. I think this is the only answer to the predicament, at this point.
What do you think?
Thanks for shedding some light.
Joey
arclightzero said,
October 19, 2007 at 10:58 am
Hi Gary, thanks for stopping by. I’m actually very happy that you decided to weigh in on this, since you are not only a parent, but a [former] educator as well. Your insight on this is invaluable, and you brought to my attention a couple of things that I didn’t know, particularly about the NEA pushing to remove parenting and Christian influence of the children. That is very alarming to say the least, since most people simply assuming that schools are educational facilities - not a surrogate parent with the goal of altering the child’s values. How many parents are actually aware that this sort of thing is happening in the public schools?
Gary said,
October 19, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Hello Joey & Arclightzero,
As for vouchers, I actually do not support them. Still too much opportunity for government control and regulation. Let the local community vote for the best schools with their $$. I’m actually for privatization of education. But I think I’ll let Pheistyblog take the credit on this one. Her latest article has the right links in it. For brevity, the link is http://www.schoolandstate.org.
As for how many parents are aware, I would say it is a growing number. One has to bear in mind that the parents of the public school age children of today were in public schools themselves with much of the same information before. Most of the quality information was changed in the 1960’s so now generational impacts raised in the altered curriculum are now showing their heads today.
At the same time, the number of homeschoolers, or those sent to private or parochial are growing quickly. So I advocate speaking up on the options and voting w/ your $$. For every 10-15 children removed from a public school (at a rate of $4k-$5k each), the wages and benefits of 1 teacher w/ a Masters +33 credits is neutralized.
No matter what approach is taken you can bet lawsuits will follow so the public ed sector will not have their monopoly challenged more. Financial pressures may force the schools to adapt or die off.
in2thefray said,
October 19, 2007 at 1:58 pm
“I’m actually for privatization of education.” hear hear !
Holly said,
October 23, 2007 at 1:10 am
Is it legal for me to lock my kid in a closet until he’s 40?
Argh….
arclightzero said,
October 23, 2007 at 10:51 am
In this day and age, I would! There too much going on out there. I wouldn’t trust anybody to raise my kids but me… I guess maybe I’m way off here, but I always thought schools were for giving kids an education and to teach them basic social skills (my only argument against home schooling). Otherwise it is up to parents to raise their kids.
Holly said,
October 23, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I don’t know how we’ll do it, but Earl and I are sending Steve to private school. We’ll find a way..I am not subjecting my kid to this crap.