News and Observer Is Obsessed with Common Core – #ncpol #mediabias

Posted on November 24, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

The News and Observer editorial board is obsessed with Common Core. More specifically, they’re obsessed with defending Common Core, maybe because it allows them to smear the legislature at the same time.

Exhibit A and B:

October 23rd
Defending Common Core

November 20th
NC should support Common Core 

I was going to write a response, but Bob Luebke’s article over at Civitas pretty much says everything I would have — but just in a nicer manner. As a parent, I’m ready to chuck tomatoes at their headquarters… oh wait.. they had to sell their headquarters.

Anyway, go read it.  The title of his article pretty much says it all: Support for Common Core Blinds N&O Editors.

Two Op-eds in a just month’s time tells me they are concerned that the Academic Standards Review Commission might actually be doing the job they were tasked with — replacing Common Core.

Neither Op-ed seems to look at actual fact, but instead relies on a healthy dose of hyperbole, political rhetoric and smears. Shame on them all. They’re not using their Common Core Critical Thinking Skills!

As I’ve said before, media regularly uses their platform to bully the public and drive a chosen narrative. Stop shrugging your shoulders and taking it. Parents and citizens should sound off in the comments of articles or of op-eds like the ones I’ve shared in this article.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core, Media Bias | Tagged | 3 Comments

That Was Fast: @RoyCooperNC will NOT defend NC Children

Posted on November 24, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Yesterday I wrote wondering if Attorney General Roy Cooper would stand up to the increasing overreach by the U.S. Department of Education (USED) by joining an amicus brief regarding the USED’s lawfare to force schools to allow transgender to basically pick their bathroom or locker room at will.

The same day, AG Cooper answered and that answer was to give North Carolina parents and kids the middle finger.

inigoCooper called McCrory a “bully” for standing up for North Carolina families. Cue Inigo Montoya.

That’s not bullying, that’s called asking you to do your job.

Actually, Cooper didn’t even have the guts to do the dirty work himself. He used a staffer to do it for him.

A staffer who has a background and history in LGBT issues, no less.

Carolina Journal reports:

Jamal Little, a spokesman for Cooper’s campaign, posted a notice yesterday saying McCrory “bullied” Gavin Grant, the transgender student, and linking the dispute to the debate over refugees fleeing the war in Syria. After noting that the governor is seeking a temporary ban on resettlement of Syrian refugees in North Carolina until greater security clearance measures are in place — a stance Cooper shares — Little wrote:

“This week, [McCrory has] found another group to politicize. Adolescence is hard enough without being bullied by an elected official. Next week, who knows who’ll be the target of a governor whose only path to re-election is dividing North Carolina.”

This move by USED isn’t just about giving students who self “identify” as the opposite sex a space of their own in order to be comfortable, USED has gone further as the Illinois case shows. USED is using Title IX to force school systems to allow these students to use opposite sex locker rooms and bathrooms.

Parents, how would you feel if your daughter had to share a locker room with a boy simply based on that boy self identifying as a girl or vice versa? How do you feel about a federal agency using the law to force that to happen?

Cooper prefers the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many. Good to know that if he were elected Governor, he’d be more than happy to throw his state under the federal government bus.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), LEGAL, LGBTQ Issues, Parental Rights, Pat McCrory | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Will @RoyCooperNC Defend NC Students? Deadline Approaches.

Posted on November 23, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Will Attorney General Roy Cooper step up and protect NC Students and the state’s sovereignty over its own schools or will be side with the Obama administration’s increasingly power-hungry Department of Education?

A few weeks back, I wrote about the incredible overreach by the U.S. Department of Education suing states and school districts under Title IX.

The short version: U.S. Dept. of Education seeks to force school districts to allow for transgender students who ‘identify’ as a certain gender to be allowed to share locker room and bathroom areas with the opposite sex.

Over the weekend, Governor McCrory called on Attorney General Roy Cooper to stand up and defend out state from such an overreach by joining South Carolina in a related amicus brief.

From the Governor’s office:

Raleigh, N.C.
Governor Pat McCrory has asked Attorney General Roy Cooper to protect local school districts by joining South Carolina and signing on to an amicus brief in the case of G. G. v. Gloucester County School Board. In this case, the Obama Administration has joined with the ACLU in an attempt to force local school districts to open sex-specific student locker rooms and bathrooms to individuals that are not of that biological sex.

“This extreme position directly contradicts the express language of federal law and threatens local control of our schools,” said Governor McCrory. “It also disregards the safety and privacy concerns of parents and students. The Obama Administration has already informed school authorities in North Carolina and around the country of this directive, and is threatening resistant schools with legal action and loss of federal funding.”

“This federal overreach is unacceptable and unnecessary. It must be stopped before our state’s schools are impacted. North Carolina schools are already capable of working with students struggling with their gender identity in a compassionate manner to accommodate their needs while preserving the rights of students and parents. A decision favoring the Obama Administration in the Fourth Circuit would be binding precedent on North Carolina federal courts. It would remove local districts’ flexibility and force the federal government’s extreme views on all of our schools.”

The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office has set a deadline of noon on November 25, 2015 to join this brief. Governor McCrory has asked the attorney general to respond by that deadline.

You can view the entire letter here.

The deadline is November 25th. That’s Thanksgiving. Will AG Cooper act or just shrug?

The same question should be floated to Dr. Atkinson, who is currently the NC State Superintendent of schools and is running for re-election.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, June Atkinson | Tagged , | 1 Comment

As NC Common Core Commission Wraps Up, DPI Starts 5 YR Annual Review

Posted on November 23, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

The NC Common Core commission (known as the ASRC) tasked with reviewing Common Core and making recommendations for removal of the standards is coming to a close, DPI has announced it has begun it’s 5 year annual review of the NC standard course of study.

I’m paraphrasing here, but this is pretty close, officials from DPI told attendees at the 11/5/15 Board of Education meeting that ‘we are starting our 5 year review. We will take the  information produced by the Academic Standards Review Commission into consideration‘.

Gee, how nice of them.   Common Core fighters, get ready. The fix is in.

Common Core kermitDPI should be reminded that, per Senator Tillman, “The legislature, in my opinion, will not take something that is just a rehash.”

I doubt the legislature will accept DPI erasing any of the recommendations the commission ends up making while they do their annual 5 year review either.

This was the point of having the commission end now; so their work could be incorporated not ‘considered.

Senator Tillman should be reminded the parents will make him eat his own words if Common Core stays in place.

This is a great opportunity for all parties to turn the favorite false “state-led” talking point of Common Core supporters into a true statement.

Related materials from the 11-5-15 Board of Ed meeting:

Related Reading:

Posted in Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core, NC Board Of Education, NC DPI | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Parents, Do You Know What Goes On In Your Kid’s School? – #NCed

Posted on November 23, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Recently, I wrote an article for Civitas on a fight at Apex high that was caught on video and made the rounds on social media.  When I looked deeper into Wake county schools and crime, I found that the police being called to area high schools was disturbingly common.

This is not an isolated set of events. This is going on all over North Carolina.

Keep the following information in mind as the creeping wave of practicing “restorative justice” in schools begins to swell. Also keep it in mind the next time you hear ‘school to prison pipeline‘ being uttered.

In the article I cited from WRAL, a student called this “normal”.

Apex High sophomore Taylor Griffin said fights happen about once a month. Since the beginning of the school year Raleigh Police have responded to 209 fight calls at the city’s eight high schools.

“It was a little scary, but it’s almost become a normal thing,” she said.

Now consider some of these stories, all of which came out just in the last month:

If that wasn’t a frightening enough sample, head over and check out Carolina PlottHound’s “Not A HomeSchool” collection.

By the way, the Principal at Harding high has been suspended for threatening a teacher and an investigation regarding a nude photo posted on Instagram is also going on.

It didn’t happen in a school, but it’s worth noting that five teens were charged in a  ‘violent sexual assault‘ on a teenage girl in Mint Hill.

Charlotte Mecklenburg schools has clammed up on what’s happening in their schools and just refused a request by WBTV for data on how often police are responding to incidents in their schools.

Parents, what is going on at your child’s school?

Related Reading:

Flashback – CMS Teacher Survey shows frustration with student discipline

You Will Be Made To Care – Fed Ed Edition

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

#DM7 Article: The Fed has Written A Suicide Note for the States

Posted on November 22, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

This is a repost of my weekly Da Tech Guy Column: The Fed has Written A Suicide Note for the States

By A.P. Dillon

From the instant the news broke there was an attack going on in Paris, I knew it was them. Everyone in the world knew it was them.

Whereas I and the rest of the world seem to be able to say the words, Islamic Terrorist’, the 2016 Democratic candidates and President Obama refuse to. And this is a big part of why the world is where it is today with regard to ISIS.

The President says he has a strategy and, like a petulant child, told the world he won’t change it. He was more than petulant actually, at the G-20,  Obama was visibly disdainful that anyone would question him about it at all as he described Paris as a “terrible and sickening setback“.

It’s now known that at least one of the ISIS terrorists was using a phony passport that allowed him to slip into Greece and then on to Paris. The terrorist hid in plain sight, entering the country among  Syrian refugees.

President Obama has ordered that the United States now take in 10,000 of these refugees. That’s up from 2,000 earlier this year. How many ISIS terrorists will be hiding among them?

Some states are not willing to find out. Yesterday, over half of the states requested the President stop sending refugees to their respective states. Only seven states have stated they will continue to take these Syrian refugees.

My home state of North Carolina was among those requesting President Obama stop sending Syrian refugees to the state.

Governor McCrory said yesterday, “My primary duty as governor is to protect the citizens of North Carolina, which is why I am taking the steps I have outlined today.”   If only we had a President who reassured the people that they were his primary duty.

Governor McCrory made it clear that the federal government was not sharing information about these refugees, including who they are, where they are residing and how they are vetted. McCrory said that North Carolina had received 59 refugees so far and “do date, we have received little or not security information about those refugees… on their backgrounds and even possibly their names in certain circumstances.”

What was interesting and frankly frightening about Governor McCrory’s press conference wasn’t the revelation the federal government was withholding details about the refugee vetting process, but rather how easily state governments are being nearly entirely circumvented.

McCrory broke it down a bit in the Q&A of the press conference and said that the refugees are brought in by the U.S. government, handed off to a non-profit in a given state and then the state only finds out about them when the non-profits bills the state for services.

Do you see the horror here? The Governor’s can request all they want from the Obama administration but unless his administration agrees to halt, the program continues and the governors are powerless.

The only thing that will truly stop refugees from flooding into the states is if they are stopped at the federal level — because the states apparently don’t have the legal authority to do so. The Refugee Act of 1980 gives Obama, or any president for that matter, the ability to do this.

Do people fully understand what this means? The states have no control over who is being sent to them nor can they stop it.  If that doesn’t scare the Holy Hell out of you, nothing will. Given the current situation, this is a suicide note written by the Fed for the States.

The states will likely have to sue to get this administration to stop it, which will take too much time to be a viable option. Another way is for Congress to cut the funding to the program. A letter from Florida’s Governor Scott to Paul Ryan asks for just that very thing to happen.

But let’s get real, we all know how good Congress is at cutting funding.  Obama is fond of doing all he can without Congress, perhaps it’s time the states tried that too.

The states shouldn’t wait for Congress; they should refuse to cooperate and pull the plug on their end.  If they are getting billed for these refugees by non-profits, it’s time to reverse engineer the process: find out who they are, where they are and then refuse to be a pass through for the bills.

ISIS scares me, but the idea that the states are now actively having to protect themselves from the potential of terrorism because of the actions of our own federal government? Well, that scares me more.

Quick side note: Next Thursday is Thankgiving and I will give thanks in a final article, which comes just past my two-year anniversary  at Da Tech Guy as a member of his Magnificent Seven. 

DM7 small LL1885A.P. Dillon resides in the Triangle area of North Carolina and is the founder of LadyLiberty1885.com.
Her current and past writing can also be found at IJ Review, StopCommonCoreNC.org, Heartland.org and Watchdog Wire NC.
Catch her on Twitter: @LadyLiberty1885

 

 

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