Detroit Free Press: Fight childhood poverty by fully funding preschool programs that don't work with money we don't have

From The Detroit Free Press: Fight childhood poverty by fully funding Great Start program

Rising poverty, coupled with the state's changing demographics, poses a daunting challenge for public policy and Michigan's future. Michigan's population is becoming more diverse, with whites expected to become the state's largest minority group in just over 30 years.

Of course, everything is due to racism, not on liberal Democratic hegemnic domination where there is poverty (read: Detroit):

Unless politicians and policymakers invest more in children's programs that alleviate racial inequities in education and health care, Michigan will become poorer, less educated and increasingly uncompetitive.

Michigan's poverty rate in 2010 -- 16.8% of state residents -- was the highest in at least four decades. The state's child poverty rate rose to 23.5%, including an unconscionable 53.6% in Detroit, according to the 2010 American Community Survey.

Uh - excuse me but just who has been running Detroit and its education system for the last 2 1/2 generations?

More than half of African-American children and 44% of Latino children under 5 live in poverty, compared to 19% for white children, according to a new report from Michigan's Children, "Michigan's Changing Demographics and the Future."

The #1 predictor of poverty isn't race of course. Rather, it's whether mom and dad are raising the kids. Around 80% of Detroit births are to single moms. It's kind of what happens when Democrats insisted on replacing the father with Big Government via welfare, with predictable results. The solution to the problem that they themselves created? More taxpayer money laundering (funneling taxpayer money to unionized teachers unions that always tithe back to the Democratic Party) via programs that are proven not to work:

...Early childhood and preschool programs are especially important, given that researchers can spot achievement gaps emerging in children as young as 9 months old. Children who don't read proficiently at the end of third grade are four times more likely to fail to graduate from high school on time.

...Michigan's Great Start Readiness Program, a full- or half-day preschool program for more than 47,000 at-risk 4-year-olds, improves school readiness, raises reading scores and boosts high school graduation rates.

The problem is the freep's continued ignorance that full-day pre-school programs don't work. The evidence has been out, but the Free Press editorial board is so wrapped up in their liberal echo chamber that the message isn't getting through. From almost exactly a year ago:Detroit Free Press: Hey - let's get our kids into pre-kindergarten programs that are PROVEN FAILURES! Science has been co-opted by the liberal movement. Data is unnecessary any more either through experimentation or through observation. Any data that contradicts liberal orthodoxy is fudged to show something that is the opposite of what the raw data has said. None-existent global warming, anyone? Check. Early childhood indoctrination? Big check. Even though such programs are proven failures, and costly ones at that. And statists never call such things "spending." It's always an investment. From Pajama's Media via Instapundit: ‘Head Start’: The $166 Billion Fed Ed Failure.

“Head Start,” the flagship pre-kindergarten program introduced in 1965, has been a $166 billion failure. That’s the upshot of a sophisticated multi-year study just released by the Department of Health and Human Services.

An earlier iteration of the study, published in 2005, had found a few modest improvements in the language skills of participating students while they were enrolled in the program. But by the end of the first grade, even those few effects have disappeared, according to the follow-up released this month. Out of 44 separate cognitive tests given to former Head Start students at the end of the first grade, only two showed even marginally significant effects. The other 42 showed no statistically significant effect at all.

In short, it was an utter waste of taxpayer money. Yet not only did the MSM not report this, they instead reported just the opposite (US DHHS: Pre-K Program is a $165 Billion flop. Detroit News and liberals: We have a fever and the only prescription is more pre-K!!!). The entirety of public schools have been co-opted by the liberal movement and basic skills like math and reading have been replaced with environmental propaganda, cultural sensitivity, self-exploration exercises, deviant alternative lifestyle studies, and singing devotional songs to dear leader:

Indoctrinating children at an even younger age will worsen the problem, not make it better. The NMU provost also threw this bait out without any justification whatsoever: "From a long-term perspective, high-quality early learning programs can save as much as $16 for every $1 invested because children who participate in these programs grow up to become better-educated and more productive workers." Those theoretical numbers are utterly contradicted by the Head Start experimental data - 45 years worth! As usual, data doesn't matter. Only that pie in the sky does.

Previously:  

Video: Rep John Sarbanes Advocates Brainwashing Children With Radical Green Agenda 

Video of John Stossel: How was school for you? 

Wellesley, MA Public School Apologizes To Parents For Teaching Students to Pray As Muslims In Mosque 

Local MI elementary school launches War On Cupcakes, bans classroom tradition of bringing in cupcakes to celebrate a child's birthday 

Video: Valedictorian Uses Graduation Speech To Rail Against Public Schooling, "Indoctrination" 

Colorado High School Tells Student to Remove US Flag From Truck Because It Coul "Disrupt Diversity" 

Granholm backs keeping children in failed public schools longer 

Video: Teachers Protest Their Own Students Who Choose To Join Military At High School Assembly 

High School test slams Christianity, lauds Islam 

Missouri elementary school bans "Happy Birthday" song because some students might be "offended" 

Video: Interview with Director of School Choice Documentary "The Lottery" Madeline Sackler 

Great News: Pole Dancing Being Taught To Kids As Young As 5 

Video: A Conversation with Former Assistant Secretary of Education Bill Evers On Obama's Education Initiatives

Video: California 6th grader denounces liberal bias in the classroom

Maine 'Human Rights' Commission Moves to Ban Gender Specific Bathrooms, Sports Teams in Schools

US DHHS: Pre-K Program is a $165 Billion flop. Detroit News and liberals: We have a fever and the only prescription is more pre-K!!!

Another symptom of the problem: Detroit school board President Otis Mathis can't write (seriously!)

Indoctrination! 11 More Videos Show School Children Singing Praises to Dear Leader Obama 

News: Old-school educational methods still work better in teaching our kids 

Oakland Charter School Teaches Discipline, Basics, Hard Work. Test Scores Go Through The Roof!

Michigan Schools Dumbing Down The Math Curriculum To Eliminate Algebra 2
Dumbing Down The Curriculum: Michigan Lawmakers To Replace Algebra II With "Renewable Energy," Other "Technical Education" Courses
Michigan students behind in math. What to do? Why lower the standards of course!
Indoctrination In Action: One in Three Children Fear Earth Apocalypse
How to make young drivers better in MI? Why push global warming junk science in drivers ed of course!
Indoctrination: Students Being Scared With Mandatory Environmental Video

Detroit News: Homeschoolers are like child abusers or something

Statist Hell: Parents Lose Right To Opt Elementary Kids Out Of Gay Indoctrination Classes
Totalitarian Hell: Parents in the U.K. lose right to withdraw children from sex education lessons

Schools District To Employ Race-Based Discipline
African-American Student Suspended For Claiming To Be African-American
Cal School District Segregating Students By Race! Call it "Heritage Assemblies"
Proof: Public Schools Being Run For Benefit Of Unions, Not Students
Because Public Schools Need This: GAY DAY!

Video:More Education Spending Doesn't Mean Better Grades

As I have opined many times on this blog, government run schools have devolved into pension, healthcare and union lifestyle management entities that teach on the side, badly, and at a financial loss to the taxpayer. Nationally, the cost of K-12 ed vs student test scores:

Q.E.D. Ironically, Obama crushed the hopes of DC public school students that were given vouchers to escape the failing system. Thus the question I have asked many times in this blog: why keep this corrupt, deficit-ridden, no value added system running at all? Just dismantle it with a stroke of the pen and give the kids a voucher to let them go to whatever school they want. Nope. Have to keep kids shackled to failed public schools to keep the victim class alive. Vouchers were a proven success in DC. Obama and his education secretary Arne Duncan were the architects that betrayed the children in Washington DC that was running a successful voucher program that proved to be both effective and cost only a quarter of what the public schools were taking in. Duncan and Obama had the data showing the success of the program before they decided to kill it off at the behest of the teacher unions. I have posted on that shameful act several times in this blog, such as these:

• It's official: Democrats kill successful DC voucher program, resegregate DC Public Schools 
• After hiding the data and dumping the successful DC voucher program, the only thing Obama should tell students today is "I'm sorry"
• Freep: Public Schools Are Crap - Let's Remold It!  
• Detroit News: DPS FAIL!!! 
• Vouchers vs. D.C. public schools 
• WaPo: Voucher Subterfuge

There is a big difference between supporting public education and supporting public schools and that gulf is widening by the day. Time to MAN UP!

Video Report: TN School District Orders Coaches Not to Bow Heads During Prayer

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Our educrats have line-item vetoed that first amendment guarantee against prohibiting the free expression with the help of activist judges that insist that 'Congress' doesn't really mean Congress but rather anyone in a government job.  And it's now been taken to an absurd level. You can't look down. Seriously. Don't look at the ground to see if your shoe is untied. From WSMV via Gateway Pundit:

Some football coaches are in trouble for something they did with their players. They said a prayer.

That has the school district taking action.

And the policy, while it may be the law, has plenty of people up in arms.

Every school district has a responsibility to follow the law, and separate private faith from public school. It can be a fine line at times. One crossed in Sumner County, it seems, when the coaches didn’t say a word during a student-led prayer, but they did bow their heads.

In a town like Westmoreland, faith and football seem to matter.

“We’re just respectful, God-fearing people up here,” resident Tony Bentle said.

Bentle called games for Westmoreland High School for 42 years.

“A lot of history. A lot of changes. A lot of football,” he said.

So when he, like a lot of people, heard what happened after a recent game at the middle school.

“It actually blew my mind, that we had come to that point,” he said. “Nobody in this town is offended if you pray. Nobody.”

During a student-originated, student-led prayer, four coaches bowed their heads. They didn’t say a word.

How is this not persecution again? And against Christianity no less, the foundation of this nation. Other religions are not only not persecuted but promoted in public schools. Case in point, via memeorandum: Father upset over homework promoting polygamy, Islam

A father's complaint that his daughter's homework promotes the Muslim faith could lead to a lesson change in Cobb County.

Channel 2's Tom Regan talked to the father who showed him where his daughter’s homework which said there's nothing wrong with having multiple wives.

More from Right Wing News and Jihad Watch

The 'New Civility' (Cont'd): TX Teacher calls local Tea Party leader 'Nazi'

The 'new tone:'

At a gathering to discuss what to do about illegal alien students and the DREAM Act in San Antonio -- a public school government teacher calls the local Tea Party President a Nazi. Video is courtesy of Eric Adam at http://www.teapartyproductions.com

The video:

More from News 4: Teacher calls local Tea Party president a Nazi

Tempers flared during a town hall meeting on the Dream Act Tuesday night. During the meeting a high school government teacher from John F. Kennedy called the local Tea Party president a Nazi.

..."When you get to name calling that just shows that there is no logic to your argument any further. It's all emotion, " said George Rodriguez, President of the San Antonio Tea Party.

The teacher's emotion came from a panelist's comment that school administration should deport undocumented students.

"So you would have students in this room deported?" asked the teacher.

The panelist replied, "Yes, I would if they were illegal. You bet."

Rodriguez also told the teacher if the person is here illegally, they are breaking the law.

"You know what I would have? I would have you teach more balanced - conservative," added Rodriguez.

After those remarks is when the teacher made the Nazi comment saying, "You can just say what you are - a Nazi."

Did Hitler deport illegal immigrants or something?

Video: Jalen Rose on Education Entrepreneurship

Via Kathy Hoekstra of The Mackinac Center for Public Policy:

Obama in OH: Pass This Bill Immediately Or Schoolkids Will Get Sick And Die From Lack Of Oxygen

Demagogue much? This part must has slipped by the AP because they posted the video in which Obama jumps the shark and insists that schoolchildren will get sick in Ohio unless his $450 billion tax increase in the middle of his recession is not passed immediately. Note his stupid argument beginning at the 1:13 mark:

"Some of the schools, the ventilation is so poor it could make students sick," Obama claimed. How do we expect our kids to do their very best in a situation like that? The answer is we can't."

Anyone out there notice that our President is a nutbar? Exit question: why doesn't Obama just ship in some taxpayer-funded Perri-Air into the schools?

Chicago Dems, Teachers Union, Form Circular Firing Squad, Pull Triggers

Quick - someone pass the popcorn: Teachers union president says Mayor Emanuel ‘exploded’ at her.  Typical Rham:

The president of the Chicago Teachers Union says Mayor Rahm Emanuel “exploded” at her during a debate over a longer school day, pointing his finger in her face, yelling and cursing.

CTU President Karen Lewis made the allegations in a Friday morning press release detailing a complaint filed by the union to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board over the ongoing battle between the union and City Hall.

“A couple of weeks ago I sat down with the mayor in his office to talk about how to roll out a longer school year and what components would go into making it a better school year for our students but he did not want to have that conversation,” said Lewis. “When I explained to him that a longer school day should not be used for warehousing or babysitting our youth he exploded, used profanity, pointed his finger in my face and yelled. At that point the conversation was over — soon thereafter we found ourselves subject to a full-scale propaganda war over a moot point.”

...The teachers union on Thursday filed its first major legal salvo in the battle over a longer school day as Lewis charged that district brass and the mayor had “declared war’’ on the union through an illegal campaign to bypass it.

The whole issue of course is over money.Funny that with socialism you at some point do indeed run out of other people's money, no? Related: Chicago Dems Turn on Teachers Union

Duncan: CPS Deserves ‘Shame’ for Short School Day: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

UPDATE: Obama Shocked to Learn Public Schools Use Modular Classrooms

The practice of using portable, modular classrooms has been around for decades, but today President Obama acted as though he had never heard of such a thing. Referring to the facilities as "trailers" the president denigrated the practice as an example why his jobs plan needs to be passed right now.

Of course, President Obama did not address how his remarks would affect the workers who manufacture the portable, modular classroom facilities or what would happen to that industry in light of his trashing the practice today. 

Video Report: WI School Districts Save $Millions Thanks to GOP Collective Bargaining Law

It's a shame that the recall elections occurred before the school year o that voters could see that the law was a net positive for them and the children:

Districts save by changing health plans: fox11online.com

ChicagoLand: College adds sexual orientation to application."Yes" answer to put students in line to qualify for scholarship 'to increase diversity'

You'll never see these same colleges asking students, or faculty applicants for that matter, if they are conservatives. You know - to 'increase diversity.' From NBC Chicago via drudge: Elmhurst College to Ask About Sexual Orientation 

Elmhurst College put a question on its admissions application that won’t appear on any other school's application.

"Would you consider yourself to be a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community?”

That optional question makes Elmhurst the first school in the country to ask applicants about their sexual orientation or gender identity, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Gary Rold, the dean of students at Elmhurst, stressed the question falls in line with the campus’ mission statement to increase diversity.

...A "yes" answer could put students in line to qualify for a scholarship worth one-third of tuition at the private, liberal arts school affiliated with the United Church of Christ, said Rold.

Two things: 1) the United Church of Christ is an oxymoron. 2) This school sure puts the liberal in liberal arts, no? A video report:

View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan: "best ideas ... in education are never going to come from me or frankly from anyone else in Washington"

Just hang onto this clip the next time DC gets a big idea about education:

According to Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution, Congress has exactly zero power over education. Zero. Even having a federal Secretary of Education seems to me to be unconstitutional.

NJ School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading List

Like cockroaches scattering in the light, so does the most liberal agenda. Via memeorandum: New Jersey School District Yanks Lesbian Sex Book From Required Summer Reading List

A New Jersey school district has apologized to parents after requiring high school students to read books that include graphic depictions of lesbian sex and a homosexual orgy.

“Some of the language is inappropriate,” said Chuck Earling, superintendent of Monroe Township Schools in Williamstown, N.J. “We were not trying to create controversy. We were just trying to get students to read.”

The books were on a required summer reading list for middle school and high school students. The district decided to pull the book off the list, with the start of school just days away.

...One book, “Norwegian Wood,” was on a list for incoming sophomores in an honors English class. The book includes a graphic depiction of a lesbian sex scene between a 31-year-old woman and a 13-year old girl, according to a report first published in the Gloucester County Times.

Great. Depravity mixed with pedophilia. Sounds just like something to "get students to read." More from CNSNews, Don Surber and The Lonely Conservative

Video: Stanford Professor Proves Big Labor Is Reason that Billions Fail to Fix Education

We already knew that.

“If you stand up for kids, you have to oppose this [collective bargaining] Schools get organized by the adults on the basis of interests and concerns that have nothing to do with kids. So, why would you expect that system to work?”

As I have opined many times on this blog, government run schools have devolved into pension, healthcare and union lifestyle management entities that teach on the side, badly, and at a financial loss to the taxpayer. Nationally, the cost of K-12 ed vs student test scores:

Q.E.D. Ironically, Obama crushed the hopes of DC public school students that were given vouchers to escape the failing system. Thus the question I have asked many times in this blog: why keep this corrupt, deficit-ridden, no value added system running at all? Just dismantle it with a stroke of the pen and give the kids a voucher to let them go to whatever school they want. Nope. Have to keep kids shackled to failed public schools to keep the victim class alive. Vouchers were a proven success in DC. Obama and his education secretary Arne Duncan were the architects that betrayed the children in Washington DC that was running a successful voucher program that proved to be both effective and cost only a quarter of what the public schools were taking in. Duncan and Obama had the data showing the success of the program before they decided to kill it off at the behest of the teacher unions. I have posted on that shameful act several times in this blog, such as these:

• It's official: Democrats kill successful DC voucher program, resegregate DC Public Schools 


• After hiding the data and dumping the successful DC voucher program, the only thing Obama should tell students today is "I'm sorry"


•  Freep: Public Schools Are Crap - Let's Remold It!  


• Detroit News: DPS FAIL!!! 


• Vouchers vs. D.C. public schools 


• WaPo: Voucher Subterfuge

There is a big difference between supporting public education and supporting public schools and that gulf is widening by the day. Time to MAN UP!

Good Grief: FL "teacher of the year" to be fired for Facebook entry opposing NY gay-marriage law

For those that conflate being anti-gay agenda with being anti-gay, this story should dissuade any such notion. A 22-year veteran high school teacher who was the "teacher of the year" at his school just this last academic year is being fired for speaking out on public policy supposedly against an ethics code. The teacher is in Florida and made the comments regarding public policy in New York. From Fox Nation: Teacher Opposed to Gay Marriage Could Lose Job

A former “Teacher of the Year” in Mount Dora, Fla. has been suspended and could lose his job after he voiced his objection to gay marriage on his private Facebook page.

Jerry Buell, a veteran American history teacher at Mount Dora High School, was removed from his teaching duties as school officials in Lake County investigate allegations that what he posted was biased towards homosexuals.

“We took the allegations seriously,” said Chris Patton, a communication officer with Lake County Schools. “All teachers are bound by a code of special ethics (and) this is a code ethics violation investigation.”

Patton said the school system received a complaint on Tuesday about something Buell had written last July when New York legalized same sex unions. On Wednesday, he was temporarily suspended from the classroom and reassigned.

Patton said Buell has taught in the school system for 22 years and has a spotless record. Last year, he was selected as the high school’s “Teacher of the Year.” But now his job is on the line because of what some have called anti-gay and homophobic comments.

Buell told Fox News Radio that he was stunned by the accusations.

“It was my own personal comment on my own personal time on my own personal computer in my own personal house, exercising what I believed as a social studies teacher to be my First Amendment rights,” he said.

Ed Morrissey posts the 'offending' remark:

The first was posted on July 25 at 5:43 p.m. as he was eating dinner and watching the evening news.

“I’m watching the news, eating dinner when the story about New York okaying same-sex unions came on and I almost threw up,” he wrote. “And now they showed two guys kissing after their announcement. If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don’t insult a man and woman’s marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool of whatever. God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable?”

Three minutes later, Buell posted another comment:

“By the way, if one doesn’t like the most recently posted opinion based on biblical principles and God’s laws, then go ahead and unfriend me. I’ll miss you like I miss my kidney stone from 1994. And I will never accept it because God will never accept it. Romans chapter one.”

Meanwhile union teachers in Wisconsin and Michigan can compare the respective governors to Hitler and murderers, on the taxayer dime since many took sick days to protest, with no worries of repercussions whatsoever.

UPDATE: Arguing with a Gay Marriage Supporter. Just make sure you're not a K-12 teacher:

Finally a supporter of homosexual “marriage” explains why it’s so important to sacrifice the ancient sanctity of holy matrimony on the altar of political correctness: