Brainwashing Youth via Education is More Effective than Bombs. Is that why Bill Ayers went into Education?

What ARE your children learning in public school (and perhaps some private schools) about OWS? Are they talking about the sentiment behind the photo above from a Zucotti Park protestor?  Are they learning this is a movement that can be summed up: "Everything for Everybody and Everything for Free"?

Are they learning about the violence that occurred in several cities including rape, stabbings, overdoses, and theft?  Not if your student has access to Scholastic material about the OWS movement.  From Hotair:

A Michelle Malkin reader was understandably concerned when his child brought home the December edition of Scholastic News, one of many offerings from the venerable publishing company. The issue tackled the Occupy Wall Street movement — with notable finesse. Read the article and you’d come away with the impression that the 99 percent are a pretty peaceable plugged-in bunch.

It’s not necessarily that what the author of the article wrote was wrong so much as it was incomplete. Nowhere, for example, does the article mention the rampant misbehavior of the Occupiers, even though the tally of the various incidents of violence and vandalism has reached 417. The closest to a mention was the final paragraph of the article: “All Americans have the right to speak out. But as these protests continue, mayors in some cities are worried about the strain on their cities’ resources. For example, extra police officers and cleanup crews are needed to make sure the gatherings remain peaceful and orderly.”

HillBuzz weighed in on this portrayal about the one-sided reporting on OWS and followed up on a suggestion of Malkin's:

Malkin has asked readers to call Scholastic and complain about this Leftist indoctrination in the classroom (since Scholastic has chosen to heap praise on the Occupoopers, while repeatedly showing scorn for Tea Party Americans):  the email and number she gave for Scholastic is: bookclubs@scholastic.com or toll-free at 1-800-SCHOLASTIC (800-724-6527). They are available Monday – Friday: 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Central Time, and on Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m

However, I called Scholastic and went through their Customer Service and found a better way to voice complaint about this indoctrination in Scholastic News.

What you really need to do is to ask to speak to a Customer Service Supervisor and have that person write an internal “Editorial” to Scholastic management in their customer complaint computer system.

I spoke with Supervisor Nicole Whittington on the phone, who was very courteous and professional to deal with — her direct line is 417-455-8421.  She has the ability to create an “Editorial” in the Scholastic system that would register your complaint about this matter.

It's time to call Scholastic and state your viewpoint.  It's indoctrination not to report on the facts of a situation.  That's one action you can take.  Hotair readers have other actions available to you and your children:

I love to use incidents like this to show my daughter and her friends how bad journalism and reporting has gotten.

When they ask me about these issues and refer to reading material like this…it is easy to take them to several different news sites to show them what is being left out of the reports.

My daughter had several friends over recently and OWS was brought up.

I took them to Hot Air….Verum Serum…Instapundit….Big Government…and showed them videos of the violence,racism,and attacks against the police.

The looks of astonishment and comments of “we’re being lied to” coming from young kids (democrat and Republican) concerning the MSM show just how badly the media is hurting itself with their bias.

Not only did the kids get a better understanding of the issue….they see just how pathetic and agenda driven news reporting has become.

I don’t make the mistake of pushing my conservative views on them…I merely tell them to research for themselves today’s issues because the MSM will leave you woefully uninformed.

and

This isn’t an example of the primary reason we homeschool but avoiding this type of propaganda is a great benefit. My decision to homeschool was made easier when my son became insistent, almost to the point of tears, to pray for the Earth after a day of preschool that included curriculum about “caring” for the Earth.

The lessons learned from the Scholastic dustup?  Don't leave it up to the schools to educate your children with the facts.  Parents must review what information their children are being presented...and how.   Otherwise, your child might just might be holding up a sign similar to the OWS protestor demanding entitlements the country can't possibly afford.

(Thanks to a Hotair reader for the title!)
 



 
 

An Interesting Conversation Regarding Teacher Tenure

Hillbuzz.org has a great post regarding the subject of teacher tenure via a discussion between a teacher and a non-teacher. I think you can learn more from a subject listening to real people and their concerns vs discussions from policy wonks. This is a snippet:

(Teacher) Her: “You work for a company that’s job is making money. Schools aren’t supposed to make money, but educate kids. Money shouldn’t enter into decisions on who the best teachers are and if they should get fired or not.”
(Non-Teacher) Me: “Everyone has to stick to a budget, both private and public. Private companies have to stick to below what their products bring in and public schools have to stick to the budget sent to them by the state. Last year, the private sector was hit hard. Many companies had at least 10% cuts across the board. The public sector was rescued by the federal government last year, and they are now going to hurt twice as much because they thought the worst was over last year and they didn’t have to do any cutting. Now they do.”

Establishing a task force to study teacher compensation is being taken up in the Missouri Legislature in SB13:

Status

January 26 2011 - Hearing Scheduled S Education Committee

Summary

Requires the Joint Committee on Education to oversee a task force on teacher compensation and effectiveness

It might be helpful if the Task Force had access to this conversation from Kansas and could refer to as they study this situation. These two people talking at a basketball game make sense talking about a subject sure to cause conversations in numerous venues, not just in the Missouri Capitol. It certainly caused quite a few comments on the hillbuzz posting from real people giving their experiences and opinion on teacher tenure.