Reporting on key Nebraska K-12 education issues on a daily basis from Susan Darst Williams, a writer who lives at the base of Mount Laundry, Nebraska. To subscribe to this blog's mailing list, and see a variety of other education features and information, visit the main education website, www.GoBigEd.com
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Friday, June 30, 2006
Posted
9:34 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
ARE STARING US IN THE FACE FROM ARIZONA
Our state laws require us to make sure our kids are learning. They do NOT limit that process to public schools only. It's ridiculous that we don't have some form of meaningful school choice, when so many other states do. Look what Arizona is doing!
If Nebraska would turn to the private sector with tuition tax credits and private scholarships for low-income children, it would help utilize our existing private schools and spur more to be started. And it would solve our twin controversies -- the plight of inner-city and minority kids in the Omaha Public Schools, whose learning curves are so far behind the white suburban kids, and also the plight of the rural children in Class I schools whose school buildings have been blown out from under them by a bad piece of state legislation, against their parents' wishes.
Arizona's good news:
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article.php?/1042.html
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Thursday, June 29, 2006
Posted
7:23 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
Re: my June 20 item about a vote the National Education Association is getting ready to take at its annual convention that would encourage, nay celebrate, teaching at all grade levels, K-12, that same-sex marriage is A-OK and just as legitimate as the traditional Mr. and Mrs. style. There could be a snowball effect against such propaganda, thanks to a development in California, that could spell doom for the NEA position. And that would be a good thing.
Reports have it that the NEA has toned down its rhetoric quite a bit in order to get the measure passed. Instead of recommending that schools undertake a full-bore pro-gay campaign, it will just encourage teachers in states in which domestic partnerships are legal to spread the pro-gay propaganda. That's still bad, but at least it's better than advocating that it be force-fed even in states in which strong majorities of voters -- presumably most of them parents and grandparents -- have passed marriage protection laws.
Comes now the California Assembly, which has delayed a vote on a similar law that would push pro-homosexual curriculum in schools, when thousands of voters contacted legislators in alarm, expressing their opposition to such a thing.
Reportedly, the outcry evaporated votes for SB 1437, which would prohibit schools in the Golden State from "reflecting adversely" on homosexuality, transsexuality and bisexuality. The Assembly postponted a vote until at least Aug. 8. In the meantime, Californians are encouraged to contact their representatives and ask them not to support the bill.
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Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Posted
1:20 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
MAY GET STRIPPED OF ITS BEAUTY QUEEN TITLE
In the educational workplace, unionism is so out of date and counter-productive, it’s kind of like a Miss America contestant trying to win the swimsuit competition with a 5 o’clock shadow and a beer belly.
But for decades in Nebraska, teachers were limited to just one choice for professional services – a labor union -- the National Education Association, and its state and local affiliates. There just wasn’t an alternative that could offer the same job protection, liability insurance and other needs of a professional teacher.
So even if you found the NEA’s leftist politics and wacko social mores more ugly than beautiful, you were stuck with them. You know: 97% of NEA “soft” political contributions going to Democratic candidates . . . nasty anti-parent policies . . . irrational protection of job tenure for bad teachers . . . kickback schemes for union wonks . . . anti-American propaganda . . . little or no academic focus . . . all immensely foreign to the priorities and views of thousands of Nebraska educators.
Well, now here comes a snazzy new contestant competing for the hearts and minds of Nebraska’s educators. It’s an alternative to the union, and instead of facial hair and a beer belly, it’s in an appealing bikini – a fresh, slimmed-down, apolitical, up-to-the-minute approach to the teaching profession.
Somebody dust off Bert Parks! And start singing!
The American Association of Educators has come to Nebraska seeking members as the approaching school year gets under way. You can drop out of the union and join the AAE, and save $350 a year. Now, THAT’S beautiful!
Learn more about the organization on www.aaeteachers.org
The AAE already has 400 teacher members across Nebraska who think $150 a year for liability insurance and other professional services from the AAE is a lot better deal than $500 in union dues – and they don’t miss bankrolling objectionable NEA political activities one bit.
Here’s predicting that the “judges” in this beauty contest – Nebraska educators – are going to go for it, bigtime.
The AAE’s Brian Burkhart is in the state currently, meeting with teachers and helping them spread the good word to colleagues. He said the AAE has 12 state affiliates across the country now, and is targeting Nebraska, Colorado and Maryland for the next three. The goal is to double its Nebraska membership and put a full-time staff member in place here.
Burkhart said a big draw is that the AAE offers teachers twice as much dollar coverage in liability insurance as the NEA affiliates do, plus guaranteed legal services. AAE liability coverage is individual; with group coverage through the union, there’s no guarantee they’ll stand behind you if there’s a problem.
Besides liability insurance, the AAE offers members a newsletter, professional development conferences, teacher scholarships, classroom mini-grants and advice on educational issues.
So far, Nebraska teachers in the Omaha Public Schools, Lincoln Public Schools, Kearney, Grand Island, Hastings and a sprinkling of other districts have joined the AAE, yet Burkhart’s visit is the first one by that organization, he said. The AAE has a 501(c)(3) foundation that can receive tax-deductible donations from Nebraskans who wish to support its efforts to launch an association here.
Burkhart said unionization is neither necessary nor consistent with the teaching profession, although it may be right for Third World countries where underpayment and job conditions might be problems. But in the United States, he said, having unionized teachers just doesn’t make sense.
The AAE promotes itself as a professional organization, not a union, similar to the occupational associations of doctors, lawyers and accountants. “The big difference is, we want to work with school boards and administrations, not against them,” Burkhart said. “We also put children first.”
Here’s what he wants Nebraska teachers to know:
-- A teacher does not HAVE to belong to the NEA or its local or state organization in order to have a teaching job. Nebraska is a Right-to-Work state. You still receive your health insurance and pension if you quit the NEA. However, the locals of the NEA are the only ones that can do collective bargaining, so you can’t do your own job negotiations or get more pay even if you disassociate yourself from the union. But if you do, at least your union dues won’t be bankrolling the other things they do that you don’t like.
-- The AAE is requesting permission from a number of Nebraska school districts to recruit new members at the start of the school year, the way the NEA does. Access is more likely to be granted if local voters ask for it, Burkhart said. You can help that process by sending a letter to your local superintendent encouraging an invitation for Burkhart (BrianBurkhart@aaeteachers.org, (703) 739-2100 or toll free (800) 704-7799. Please send him a copy if you take this step.
-- If you’re already a union member, you can join the AAE, too.
-- If you want to drop out of the union in favor of AAE, you can, but there’s usually a brief “union drop period” defined in the collective bargaining agreement or school board policy manual. You have to quit, formally, during that time period or be liable for union dues. The AAE or the union local can tell you when the drop period is; it may be just two weeks at the start of the school year.
-- To drop out, you can send a certified letter to your union president and the district employee designated by your school board, usually a payroll manager or human resources director, stating that you are resigning. It must be received during the drop period. The AAE has a sample letter you can use. Payroll deductions of union dues should cease.
-- Classroom liability insurance is available at any time through the AAE, (800) 704-7799.
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Friday, June 23, 2006
Posted
4:55 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
SUE FOR FIRST AMENDMENT VIOLATION?
(AgapePress) -- A constitutional attorney is denouncing a Las Vegas school district for pulling the plug on a Christian student's commencement speech because it referred to her faith in Jesus Christ. At a recent graduation ceremony, Clark County School District (CCSD) officials cut the microphone on Foothill High School valedictorian Brittany McComb after she began reading a speech that contained Bible verses and references to God.
The district officials claim McComb's speech amounted to religious proselytizing and could have been perceived as school-sponsored, thus making it a violation of the so-called separation of church and state. But Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Florida-based pro-family legal organization Liberty Counsel, says the high school valedictorian has every right to take the school district to court over the incident.
"I think this is one of the most outrageous examples of censorship at graduation that I've seen," Staver contends. "For school officials to literally be standing by the switch at the mixing board and cut the microphone on a student, simply because that student mentions God or Jesus, is just unbelievable."
With high school behind her, McComb plans to study journalism at Biola University, a Christian college in Southern California. But during her four years at Foothill, she says, "they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech." However, when the school's 2006 valedictorian tried to apply these lessons in her graduation address, the graduating senior with the 4.7 GPA ran into a problem.
In vetting McComb's speech, school officials stripped it of biblical references and approved an edited version, cutting six mentions of God or Christ and omitting two biblical references. At the graduation exercises, however, the teen commencement speaker felt compelled to deviate from the edited version. "God's the biggest part of my life," she says. "Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my Lord and Savior."
For the Foothill High School graduate, it all boiled down to her faith and her fundamental First Amendment right to free speech. For those reasons , she asserts, she chose in this instance to rebel against authority for the first time in her life. And, according to an Associated Press report, a sympathetic crowd of nearly 400 graduates and their families booed angrily at the school officials for several minutes after they cut McComb's microphone.
An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada official who read the unedited version of the young woman's speech told the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper the school district did the right thing in cutting the valedictory address short. But Staver disagrees that the district's action was warranted and comments, "In my opinion it's reprehensible, and I also believe it's unconstitutional."
The ACLU spokesperson quoted in the Review-Journal made the argument that graduation speakers like McComb are given a school-sponsored forum and therefore their speech is school-sponsored speech. But Liberty Counsel's chairman insists that student commencement speakers' personal remarks and expressions are free speech under the U.S. Constitution.
"Clearly, the law protects students who are in the graduation podium, on the platform, because they are there for some neutral reason -- in this case, being the valedictorian," Staver says. "That student has the right to be able to give a message of his or her own choice regarding the viewpoint of the particular message that's being delivered."
While the attorney regards the silencing of McComb's speech at the Foothill High School commencement as one of the most egregious acts of graduation censorship he has seen, he notes that it is one among many such incidents that happen to speakers of faith every year -- a problem that has to be stopped. "Schools should not, must not, and must stop censoring these kinds of religious viewpoints simply because they are Christian in nature," he says.
Even now, Staver points out, his organization is involved in a similar case. Liberty Counsel is currently representing a Colorado high school graduate whose diploma was withheld after she shared her faith in Jesus Christ during a commencement speech.
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Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Posted
12:05 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
JUST TO GET THE "VIGORISH" IN A SWEETHEART DEAL
Footnote to today's earlier story about the wacky, radical, non-education items on the agenda at the annual convention of the National Education Association that's coming up:
Come to find out, also on the eve of the NEA convention, New York's largest teachers union agreed this week to end a kickback scheme that allowed it to pocket $3 million from insurer ING Group in exchange for promoting that company's high-cost, low-yield annuities to teachers.
The annuities carried fees and expenses of as much as 2.85% a year, or about three times the cost of many popular mutual fund investments. But the sweetheart deal -- the fees paid directly to the union for their endorsement -- was concealed from teacher members.
The uinon has to hire an independent consultant to suggest alternative investments to union members, pay $100,000 to cover costs of the state investigation, provide members with annual access to free and objective investment advice, and allow the 53,000 people who purchased retirement products it endorsed in the past to roll their balances into a newly endorsed product at no cost.
The union's deal with ING was spotlighted in an April 25 Los Angeles Times story about how large teachers unions endorse pension supplements that do little or no good for the individual teachers, but line the pockets of the union wonks.
Once again, you have to ask: why, oh why, do our nice, deserving teachers stick with these creeps?
Posted
11:04 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
YOO HOO, OPS: THERE'S AN IDEA!
The Denver Public Schools just cut 100 nonclassroom jobs to save $7.5 million in central administration costs, the Rocky Mountain News has reported.
If the current controversy in the Omaha Public Schools were being handled by anybody OTHER than educrats, there's little doubt that nonteaching budget cuts like that would have been the first solution recommended, and a good one.
But nooooo: we're getting Lawsuit City, and the Mother of All Districts in the form of a new, collective "learning community" that'll cost us all even more money.
In Denver, next year's projected deficit is $10.5 million as the district deals with declining enrollment and rising fixed costs.
Some of the jobs cut in Denver were vacant, or part-time. Samples of how else nonteaching cuts were made:
-- 6.5 jobs in the curriculum and instruction department will be funded in 2006-07 by federal grant dollars.
-- 46 of the jobs cut were custodial positions, for a total savings of $1.44 million.
-- The assistant superintendent of budget and finance is leaving, and his position and his secretary's will not be filled.
-- The jobs of executive director of transportation, assistant superintendent of student services and district spokesperson were eliminated.
-- Copying is being outsourced.
Here's hoping the powers that be in Nebraska will see that budget cuts can be done without affecting classroom operations one bit.
Posted
9:47 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
HOMOSEXUAL AND GROUP 'MARRIAGE'?
It just makes you wonder why any of Nebraska’s 20,000 or so teachers still belong to the National Education Association. Comes now a report that the national teachers’ union plans to endorse homosexual “marriage” at its annual convention in Orlando June 29 to July 6.
Reportedly, the NEA proposal doesn’t just say teachers should “tolerate” content about same-sex marriage, but that they should support and actively promote homosexual “marriage” as well as group “marriage” in the classroom.
The proposal is listed under B-8 “Diversity” and is expected to pass overwhelmingly.
Here it comes: Nebraska kindergarten classrooms will be like the one in Lexington, Mass., in which parents were never consulted before kids were exposed to pro-homosexual storybooks, much less allowed to opt them out. But when a dad came to school to talk about it, even though he stayed courteous, he wound up arrested and hauled off to jail.
The latest is that, on the anniversary of another horrible same-sex “marriage” development there, his little boy was hauled off by some other kids at school, and beaten up. You can read more about what’s coming soon to a Nebraska school near you, courtesy of the NEA, on the website set up in Massachusetts to try to battle back the homosexual activists from schools there:
www.massresistance.org
You can read more about the issues that are coming up at the NEA convention on the union’s website, www.nea.org
It makes for entertaining reading, though it also makes you wonder how our good, normal, sensible Nebraska teachers can stand for this malarkey:
-- The NEA says No Child Left Behind is “seriously flawed and underfunded” and is putting thousands of teachers’ careers in jeopardy. Never mind the extra billions upon billions that the Bush Administration has plowed into public schools. Never mind that there are more people employed by our nation’s public schools than ever before in our history, and that goes not only for raw numbers, but also in employees per pupil.
-- Charter schools, vouchers and privatization are baaaaaaad, according to the NEA, even though they do a better job with kids and cost taxpayers less money. They’re baaaaaaad because they don’t buy in to NEA malarkey, that’s all.
-- Teachers need more pay. This one may be so. But the NEA completely bashes down any spark of innovation, any hint that pay might need to be linked to performance. The NEA demands more pay, not for GOOD teachers, but ALL teachers. Not teachers whose students do better on objective tests than the year before, but ALL teachers. Not teachers capable of teaching physics and trig, but ALL teachers. Not teachers willing to drive into the inner city and face really challenging classrooms, but ALL teachers.
-- The minimum teacher’s salary around the nation should be $40,000. Riiiiight. Pop ‘em right out of teachers’ college with maybe a “C” average on nonsense courses, and then set ‘em down in Podunk town in a district with 500 students, making 40G’s right off the bat, which is more than the mayor and police chief make, combined.
-- National board certification is gooooooooood, even though research shows teachers who do NOT have this designation actually do a better job. The NEA doesn’t care; the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) designation is gooooooood because it’s another way to get more money to teachers regardless of the quality of the job they do.
One thing on the NEA platform I didn’t notice: now that they’re going to demand curriculum that “celebrates” group “marriage,” how do they expect us to pay for the fringe benefits of alllllllllllll those marriage “partners” that some teachers are likely to have?
I mean . . . to get the juicy public-school bennies, a teacher may marry 14 guys, 27 gals, a paper airplane and a chair leg . . . and then they’re ALL on our nickels for health care as that teacher’s dependents.
Which will make even LESS money available for actual learning. Oh, yeah, learning: that’s the one thing missing from the NEA platform!
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Saturday, June 17, 2006
Posted
9:06 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
HOW SAN DIEGO IS TACKLING IT
The percentage of kids who skip school in the Omaha Public Schools is more than twice as high as the statewide average. It's a no-brainer that absenteeism is a huge reason for the lower test scores in OPS. If you're not there, how can you learn? Yet no one seems to be focusing on the obvious truancy problems in OPS, as the whole state remains up in arms about what to do to close the achievement gap for inner-city kids.
Maybe we should KISS -- Keep It Simple, Stupid. Instead of spending billions and completely revamping the governance of districts and attendance areas in the Omaha metropolitan area through a whole new "learning community," we could spend about $200,000 and have a first-class marketing program to pinpoint why kids aren't in school, and do something to radically turn that around.
Maybe we should take a page from the San Diego Unified School District. They estimate that absenteeism cost that district $25 million last school year. A big reason: funding is based on attendance, instead of pure enrollment. That's one major change Nebraska could and probably should make to "incentivize" OPS to get with the program and attack truancy proactively.
But there are other things that OPS and the whole community could be doing, that don't cost all that much but have a huge payoff for kids. In San Diego, they're launching a huge new push to boost attendance anywhere it falls beneath 95% with cheap and easy strategies:
-- Free bags and beach balls emblazoned with 9.05.06, reminding students to return to school Sept. 5. That's typically a poorly-attended day, but this year there will be prizes.
-- During the school year, fliers, stickers, magnets, banners and public-service announcements constantly remind parents and students about the importance of school attendance.
-- Monthly bicycle raffles for which only students who have had perfect attendance are eligible.
-- Merchants and health-care professionals are reinforcing the message.
-- School police will step up truancy sweeps, from several times a year, to daily.
-- The district is setting up a truancy center, where those playing hooky will be sent for class once they are picked up on the street.
The campaign is being funded by outside money. The district has $200,000 left from a $600,000 Annie E. Casey Foundation grant, and is using part of that money. It's also seeking donations from other sponsors.
For more, see:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20060617-9999-7m17truancy.html
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Friday, June 16, 2006
Posted
12:34 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
Nebraska and Montana are now the only states that do not require a new elementary teacher to take a content-based competency test in order to receive a teaching certificate.
Iowa just caved in to that requirement after the U.S. Department of Education said it would withhold millions in federal grants, because of the lack of compliance with No Child Left Behind law.
Iowa had been using its own system of evaluating student teachers on a variety of criteria to determine classroom readiness. Those include classroom management, lesson planning and parent-teacher interaction. Iowa officials say they plan to continue their own teacher-training routine, and just add the tests as another step along the way. Now prospective teachers will have to pass a basic-skills test covering math, reading, social studies and science.
Beginning in 2007, all new incoming elementary teachers in Iowa will take a $100 test, called Praxis II. The test costs about $100 per student. From 2,000 to 3,000 people receive teaching licenses in Iowa each year.
Here's the funny part, though: many years ago, when I first learned that Nebraska didn't give prospective teachers a competency test, I bought a Praxis book with a sample test at the University of Nebraska at Omaha bookstore, just to see how hard it was. It didn't look all that hard to me. I gave it to my seventh-grade daughter. Now, I'm the first to admit it: she's smart.
BUT SHE DID NOT MISS A SINGLE QUESTION ON IT!!!!!!! And she was 12 years old. I still have the book. Since that was about 10 years ago, maybe the updated version is more challenging. But I doubt it.
So what's the risk to any college graduate? If a 12-year-old can get 100%, can an education major actually worry about failing it? What do they have to lose? The average teaching job is now worth about $42,000 a year. Is $100 too much to ask as a fail-safe?
What does it say about Nebraska, that we resist this objective measurement, that can provide bare-bones accountability to the public?
And for how many years have I been saying that there are teachers in this state who don't have as much academic ability as the kids they teach, and ought to be out of a job?
Maybe I'm wrong. I sure hope I am. But let's get going with Praxis before we lose our federal funding, and prove it.
Posted
10:07 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
What will they think of next? Now some education bureaucrats in Michigan have actually discussed banning the word "America" in schools because they think it's "ethnocentric" of Americans to hog that name. They think it's unkind to the residents of other North American, Central American and South American nations who might want to call themselves "Americans," too.
So what are we supposed to call ourselves? "United Statesians"?!?!?!
A former Michigan state school board member wrote an op-ed about the wacky idea after he learned that a Michigan Department of Education committee had discussed it. After the publicity, the idea shut down tight.
The state school superintendent said it would never have gotten past him, but it's scary enough that it came up in the first place among state employees:
www.michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-140--144090--,00.html
Better be on the alert for the anti-American "thought police" in your district. Uhh, make that, "anti-United Statesian."
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Thursday, June 15, 2006
Posted
4:24 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
Whoa. Here's a hot one. Apparently, some school district officials in Philadelphia took an overseas trip compliments of a company, and then turned around and gave that company a "no-bid" contract worth nearly a million dollars.
See http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/14820301.htm
Makes you wonder whether this sort of thing is going on in Nebraska school districts. Or how much.
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Posted
4:40 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
High-school "mathletes" from Nebraska placed 11th out of 80 teams nationwide at a recent competition in Iowa City. Fifteen Cornhusker kids competed in the American Regions Math League's 31st annual contest. They earned the right to compete based on results of Math Day at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this past spring.
Eleven of the students were from public high schools: Omaha North sent two; Omaha Central sent one; Lincoln East sent five; Lincoln Northeast sent one; Lincoln Southeast sent one; Seward High School sent one.
Four more were from private high schools: Brownell-Talbot sent two students, Creighton Prep sent one, and Lincoln Pius X sent one.
It should be noted, however, that only a tiny fraction of Nebraska students are actually excelling in math these days. Iowa, for example, sent six teams to the competition. And according to the Advanced Placement Report to the Nation, available on www.collegeboard.com, Nebraska has one of the lowest percentages in the nation of students who receive college credit for math and other subjects, based on results of AP tests.
According to the College Board, which operates the Advanced Placement system, last year 1,395 Nebraska students took AP tests in various subjects, including math, but only 849 scored a "3" out of 5, or better, resulting in college credit. That's 4.4% of the Nebraska student body, compared to the national average of 14.1%.
Ouch! Doesn't add up! So even though it's great that 15 of our top math kids did so well, let's not be deceived about what's happening with everybody else.
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Posted
10:00 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
WORTHY TO BE OUR 'CHIEF'?
You had to wince last week as the highly-paid State Education Commissioner and the State Board of Education made a big deal out of high school mascots with names that they thought were rude to Native Americans, while at the same time:
-- Nebraska’s learning standards, put in place by this same commissioner, Doug Christensen, and the State Board, got a credibility rating just a tick above flunking, with a D-. That’s because the percentage of students the State proclaims as “proficient” based on the State’s own standards is so much higher than the percentage of kids who scored that way on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. That means Nebraska doesn’t have much, if any, “truth in advertising” about how well our kids stack up compared to kids from the rest of the nation. We have one of the widest credibility gaps in the nation, too. It strongly suggests we dumbed down our standards precipitously to get around the quality requirements of No Child Left Behind. Our standards and assessment system is telling our parents and taxpayers that kids are doing great, but apparently, they’re really not. What have I been saying for several years? Eek, eek, eek. And Christensen and the State Board are responsible for this, but all they can harp about is sports mascots called the “Braves.” See: http://www.educationnext.org/20063/28.html
-- The same commissioner got the same state board to fork over more than $100,000 in tax dollars to nonsense education industry groups as “dues,” when the net effect of what we get for that money is to have our schools dumbed down and nationalized. Nebraska is paying $58,200 to the Education Commission of the States, $29,213 to the Council of Chief State School Officers, $20,802 to the National Association of State Boards of Education, and some other sum, not listed in the minutes, to the Nebraska Association of School Boards. You can see the invoices by clicking on the hot links at item 7.3.1 on the state board’s minutes: www.nde.state.ne.us/StateBoard/agendas/2006/June_Agenda.doc
-- Did you catch the name of the second organization, the Council of Chief State School Officers, to which Christensen belongs, and for which Nebraska taxpayers pay more than $29,000 a year so that he can hobknob with educrat buddies? Well, did you notice how they like to have themselves called “Chief”? Do you think they all wear feather headdresses as they woo-woo around at the workshops and cocktail parties? Do you think it’s good public policy for Nebraska taxpayers to be financing this kind of racial injustice? Or should we withhold our $29,000 until they change their name, and act the way Christensen is, harping on a handful of high schools who are only seeking to identify with what’s great about Native Americans and our history, anyway. Naaaaah. It would take forever to get rid of the word “chief” from educrat documentation. If you search the State Ed Department’s website, www.nde.state.ne.us, you’ll see that Christensen loves to have himself called “Ed Chief,” and that the superintendents love to have themselves called “chief” executive officers, and the guys who give the General Equivalency Diploma tests love to call themselves “chief examiners” . . . in fact, the educrats themselves are crawling with what could be considered racially-inspired, self-inflicted, embarrassing epithets. But does anybody care? Not really. We’re all too busy making enough money to pay the taxes to finance the educrats’ membership in these do-nothing organizations.
And don’t even get me started about the REAL issue, which is conveniently dodged, which is the sad, sorry status of Native American children’s learning in Nebraska schools. . . .
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