Posted 1:26 PM by Susan Darst Williams

PROPAGANDIZING IN THE CLASSROOM

A Go Big Ed reader tells this tale: a student in the Omaha Public Schools came home from school last week and asked her mother who she was voting for. The reader reports:

‘’She proudly stated, ‘President Bush,’ and her daughter told her she shouldn’t because her teacher said if they don’t get John Kerry elected they will lose their schools and education funding.’’

Who knows how much of that NEA-driven propagandizing has been going on? Should that teacher be disciplined, even fired? Doesn’t that violate a teacher’s code of ethics or code of conduct? Doesn’t it constitute a breach of the ‘’in loco parentis’’ agreement, whereby teachers act as parental stand-ins during school hours, but not supplanters?

Or do teachers have free speech rights with regard to politics, but somehow, not for religion? But do those rights still stand when obviously an expressed political opinion is based on a falsehood which with very little effort could have been discovered as false? (Federal spending on K-12 education has INCREASED by 49 percent since Bush took office, for example.) Isn’t that ‘’malice’’ on the part of the teacher, to deliberately spread a falsehood?

Recommendation: that mother should check with the teacher to make sure this incident is true, and to find out if the teacher is the union representative in that school. If those two things check out, then whoa: action needs to be taken. She should then write a letter to the Public Pulse and appear before the school board about this incident. Others should demand that teacher’s job and maybe even union decertification in that school, if the teacher is a union official.

Too harsh? Well, why not? Propagandizing captive children in schools is deplorable, and needs to be exposed and given strong consequences to be stopped.

If you’re thinking this is one isolated incident, think again. Go to the Family Research Council’s website, www.frc.org and download a handout, ‘’Reading, ‘Riting, and Rhetoric,’’ that was given to students recently in a classroom in Pulaski, N.Y. It was supposed to “help’’ students choose a Presidential candidate based on which of their ‘’viewpoints’’ match the students’ own. Here are just a few items that should make your blood boil:

BUSH:
Wealthy people pay fewer taxes.

KERRY:
Working class people pay fewer taxes.

BUSH:
Fight the war in Iraq alone (just the U.S.) and don’t work with the United Nations.

KERRY:
Work with the United Nations and join together with our allies to rebuild Iraq.

BUSH:
Dig for oil and gas in wildlife refuges.

KERRY:
Against destroying wildlife to explore for gas and oil.

Go ahead and see for yourself. There are eight items, all with that incredible bias and distortion.

Should this teacher be fired? I say yes.

Should the parents of those children pull them out and put them in private school, where the wishes of the parents are heeded and respected, and the kids aren’t somebody’s political cannon fodder?

I say yes.

What do YOU say?

Election Day is our celebration of freedom, even beyond the Fourth of July. A big thank you to all the candidates and their committees for stepping forward to participate in the process. You are appreciated! Here’s hoping that wisdom is the life of this party Tuesday -- and that honest, ethical, faithful people gain office, and go to work to stop this kind of stuff.