Are Public Schools Anti-Parent?Written by Joel Turtel
Some public schools try to turn children against their parents with scary classroom stories or lessons about child abuse. Public school authorities have increasingly decided that they are children’s first line of defense against child abuse. This new attitude falls under what is now known as "protective behavior curriculum."The assumptions behind this curriculum are that every child needs to be warned about and prepared for possible dangers of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse because allegedly every child is a potential victim, not only of strangers but of his or her own family. Increasingly, school authorities instruct teachers to ask children questions about their parents’ behavior and actions toward them at home. The questions amount to asking kids to spy on their parents and report incidents that make them feel “uncomfortable.” Some school authorities use such tales by children to investigate or file charges of child abuse against parents who often did no more than yell at their children or spank them lightly. In effect, to allegedly protect children, some school authorities now consider all parents as potential abusers, use children to invade parents’ privacy, or make kids afraid of their parents. Often, children are disturbed and emotionally traumatized by insinuations school authorities put into their heads. The following incident described by Charles J. Sykes, in his book "Dumbing Down Our Kids," illustrates this disturbing anti-parent campaign by many public schools across country:
| | Vouchers --- Parents, Don't Depend On ThemWritten by Joel Turtel
Vouchers, which give tax money to parents to pay for tuition in private schools, sound good in theory. The problem is that voucher programs are few and very far between. The Supreme Court declared vouchers constitutional in 2002, but currently only thirteen cities or states have created voucher or education tax credit programs.Some of these voucher programs are tax credit programs, whether personal or corporate, and cover only a fraction of tuition costs. The voucher programs have various restrictions that limit their benefits to a relatively small number of children (such as Florida programs that are limited to disabled students or to schools that get an ‘F’ grade). Also, many of these programs pay only part of tuition costs. In ‘tuitioning’ programs in Maine and Vermont, most eligible kids simply transfer to public schools in other towns. In effect, these programs barely scratch surface —they only help a tiny fraction of approximately 45 million school children who now suffer through public-school education. Also, education establishment, teacher unions, and most state and federal legislators in Democratic party are against vouchers. Teacher unions fight voucher initiatives tooth and nail with lawsuits. When unions take state voucher plans to court, these lawsuits can drag on for years. The voucher fight is going to be a long, bitter, ongoing legal battle between parents, states, and teacher unions. Also, most states today are running huge budget deficits. As a result, states are cutting back on programs already on their books, so they can hardly afford expensive new voucher programs. California had close to a $13 billion budget deficit (which they “closed” by typical near-sighted trick of borrowing money with new state bonds), Texas a $10 billion deficit, and New York about an $8 billion deficit.15 (these deficit numbers keep fluctuating, depending on which politician is citing which new study, but deficits are huge).
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