Kite Runner Update: Buncombe Ed Board Ignores Parental Rights

Posted on July 3, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

The mentality that somehow parents and taxpayers are subservient to Boards of Education is becoming a pervasive one; bordering on bullying in some cases.

parental rights chalkboard memeSuch is the case in Buncombe, where former School Board member Lisa Baldwin has been fighting to be heard on her objections to the book, The Kite Runner.

Mrs. Baldwin’s Freedom of Information Act request still has not been filled and officials in Buncombe seemingly have fought against being transparent from the start of this process.

Baldwin had and update in this case, via a press release yesterday, which I am posting in its entirety:
For Immediate Release: An Open Letter To The Media Regarding ‘The Kite Runner’ Decision
July 2, 2015

At a special called meeting today, the Buncombe County school board accepted a review committee’s recommendation to keep ‘The Kite Runner’ on the reading list for all high schools in the district.

Cindy McMahon, school board member said, “I am grateful that this process has happened in our community and that so many of us have read this book and are talking about it. And this is what democracy is about.” After making this statement, she and the rest of the Board unanimously voted to keep the book on all high school reading lists which means the Board will not allow parents at any Buncombe high school to challenge ‘The Kite Runner’. This decision was a slap in the face of democracy and parental rights; parents should have the right to offer input into their children’s education.

This decision is about more than a sexually explicit novel (graphic descriptions of child rape/sexual assault) written at a 6th grade reading level. It is about disregard for academic rigor and the proper guardianship of our children. Many academically rigorous books could have been chosen, such as NYT Bestseller, ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’, that address the Islamic culture but don’t contain sexually explicit details of child rape/sexual assault.

Some board members called taking the book off the list censorship. This is not about book banning or censorship but judging whether a book is suitable for whole class instruction. The book has stayed in school libraries, public libraries and bookstores.

Other board members felt opting out was a fair option. In general, opting-out is not a good solution because there is great value in class discussion. This situation forces an unequal education, unless there is a significant group opting out. It can also set up the student who opts out to be ostracized and bullied.

Sincerely,
Lisa Baldwin

 

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Kite Runner’ Concerns Fall On Deaf Ears In Buncombe

Baldwin Continues To Fight For Parental Rights, Appeals Kite Runner Decision

MORE Controversial Reading Assignments In NC…and Beyond

Follow-Up: Another NC Reading Assignment Questioned

Another NC Reading Assignment Questioned

Posted in EDUCATION, Parental Rights | Tagged | 1 Comment

Moral Monday On A Wednesday – Again. Six Arrests – See Who They Are.

Posted on July 2, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Moral Monday held another protest… on a Wednesday. Six were arrested. We’ll get to them, but first it appears that Occupy-fatigue syndrome is setting in – at least for the press.

The Associated Press put up a whole five sentences this time.

Via ABC 11:

Protesters advocating equal protection for gays, immigrants and the uninsured in the wake of last week’s U.S. Supreme Court rulings were arrested at a demonstration in the North Carolina Legislative Building.

General Assembly police arrested six demonstrators Wednesday following a larger rally in the rotunda between the House and Senate chambers. The six refused to leave with the crowd of around 40 people after police told them they would be subject to arrest once the building closed at 5 p.m.

Affiliated with the North Carolina NAACP and the “Moral Mondays” movement, the protesters called on the General Assembly to expand Medicaid, pass anti-discrimination laws for gay and transgender people and offer in-state tuition to undocumented students.

North Carolina NAACP President the Rev. William Barber was not among those arrested.

Yes, the Reverend was not arrested this time around. He was arrested last time. Can’t rack up too many charges or they won’t get dismissed probably.

The charges were the same for all six according to Wake Mugshots:

07-01-2015 14-159.13 SECOND DEGREE TRESPASS
07-01-2015 120-32.1(B) VIOLATING LEGISLATIVE BUILDING RULES

According to Wake Mugshots, these were the names of the volunteer arrestees; 5 females and one male. More notes in parentheses.

  1. ARMENTA EATON   [Plaintiff in Moral Monday Lawsuit]
  2. CHALLEE DANIELLE HOL CESSION
  3. STEPHANIE PEDIADITAKIS ERIKSEN-GOSLEN [Apparently an IndyWeek Regular?]
  4. ANN PHARR HARRAWOOD
  5. GEORGE THOMAS HIGH
  6. APRIL PARKER  [Bio at Queer People of Color Collective]

 

RELATED: NCGOP: REV. BULLYBARBER POCKETS BIG UNION CASH…

Note: All information listed above is publicly available.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), LGBTQ Issues, Moral Monday, Reverend Barber | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Moral Monday On A Wednesday – Again. Six Arrests – See Who They Are.

Chapel Hill Public Library To Host Panel On “Teaching Diversity to Children”

Posted on July 1, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

It’s Groundhog Day in Chapel Hill.

Publicly funded Chapel Hill Public Library will host a panel on “Teaching Diversity to Children” on July 8th featuring former Effland Cheek’s 3rd grade teacher, Omar Currie.

 

From the Chapel Hill Library website announcing the event:

The first discussion will be about how diversity is taught to school-aged children and will feature Omar Currie, former teacher at Efland Cheeks Elementary School, reading the picture book King and King. Library Director Susan Brown will moderate the public talk, which will be on Wednesday, July 8th from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. in Meeting Room B at the library.

Mr. Currie was at the center of a recent debate over the appropriateness of reading the book, which features a romantic relationship between two men, to his third-grade classroom in Efland. He has since resigned.

Give me a break!  

How many more tax dollars will be used so we can hear Omar Currie talk about how he knows what our young children should and shouldn’t learn about charged topics like sexuality?

No Parental Consent & The Bullying Incident That Wasn’t
This past Spring, Currie read a homosexual themed fable to his 3rd grade class without consulting his student’s parents or giving any advance warning to them.

Currie claimed that he read the fable to combat ‘bullying’ as a result of an incident between two students in his class. Currie changed his story on that incident between his students no less than three times.

Students who were involved in an argument on the day in question have a totally different version of events that contradict Currie’s excuse of ‘bullying’ for reading the book.

One child is reported to have objected to the book and that child stated they were uncomfortable.

Orange County Schools spokesperson Seth Stephens told me that no report of bullying was filed for Mr. Currie’s classroom. In fact, no reports of bullying were filed by any 3rd grade classroom for the whole year at Efland Cheeks.


Currie and Goodhand are LGBT Activists First, Educators Second
Mr. Currie and his assistant principal, Meg Goodhand, are both homosexuals and LGBT activists.

They both are  affiliated with Safe Schools NC, which is an LGBT group that works with students. They served on the board together up until just recently when a new one was elected.

To support Safe Schools NC, Currie and Goodhand going to appear at The Regulator Book shop in Durham on August 9th to read and help promote the sale of King and King.

Proceeds of this event at The Regulator will go to “promote awareness and a diverse inclusive curriculum“.

academics vs social justice bsBoth of them attended a LGBT conference in Asheville just a week prior to the alleged ‘bullying’ incident which prompted Currie’s reading of King and King.

The two of them gave a presentation at the conference that was aimed at “Disrupting Heteronormative School Cultures”. 

The presentation included how to, “collaborate on ways school leaders and teachers can confront homophobic language/actions/curricula within the schools” .

Goodhand provided Currie with this book, King and King.  Why that book?

Because it’s in your Safe Schools NC resources? Resources which are almost 100% provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s offshoot called Teaching Tolerance?

If parents missed my 5 part series on Teaching Tolerance, now is the time to get caught up.


Resignation or Did They Plan To Leave… in March?
Mr. Currie and Ms. Goodhand likely didn’t just up and resign over this.

I’ve been told by various parties associated by the school that Currie filed paperwork back in March of this year which stated his intention not to return to Efland Cheeks. It is a good bed Goodhand did too. Attempts to obtain a comment from Mr. Currie to verify or deny this have gone unanswered.

Conclusion: The whole thing looks concocted
If this wasn’t a planned event by these two, then this is all a Hell of a coincidence.

Folks can draw their own conclusions. One conclusion is that Currie and Goodhand saw a chance to put their social activism into play in the classroom and went for it. Given Currie’s own statements, he clearly didn’t give a damn about violating the rights of the parents of his students.

Whatever you want to believe, Currie clearly thinks he has done no wrong here. He has demonstrated zero regard for the rights of the parents and thinks this is all about him. Meanwhile, no one seems to wonder about the kids or parents who were upset by his actions.

Omar Currie and Meg Goodhand violated the trust and parental rights of the parents of Efland Cheeks.

The LGBT community regards what they did as heroic.  That’s not heroic. That’s called bullying.

 
UPDATE 7-9-15 – Gee, Omar Currie has a teaching position this fall. In Virginia. To date, no media outlet has investigated his claim of bullying, spoken to the parents about the complaints they filed. Nothing. Zip. Apparently, it’s A-OK for a public school teacher to read a book about homosexuality to 8 and 9 year-olds so long as they sell some song and dance about ‘bullying’.

Related Reading:

Common Core Aligned: Teaching Tolerance Series:

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, LGBTQ Issues, THE LEFT | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Former CMS Superintendent Lands In Cushy McGraw Hill Senior VP Position

Posted on June 30, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Back in January of this year, Charlotte Mecklenburg’s Superintendent resigned his position after allegations of misconduct that included accusations Morrison created a ‘culture of fear’ for employees at CMS.

Dr. Morrison must be a cat, because he landed on his feet in a cushy McGraw Hill publishing job less than a month later.  I’m sure he’s making more than the over $288k base salary he made as CMS Superintendent.

From the Press release, emphasis added:

NEW YORK, Feb. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — McGraw-Hill Education today announced that Dr. Heath Morrison will be joining the company as senior vice president of government affairs.  In this role, he will be responsible for representing the company’s government-related opportunities before federal and state legislators and regulators and representatives of local school districts. Morrison’s team will also serve as advocates for McGraw-Hill Education on policy issues affecting the company and its industry.

*snip*

So in other words, Morrison’s “Senior Vice President” position is basically being a lobbyist.

More at Charlotte Observer:

Peter Cohen, group president of U.S. education for the company, said in a statement that Morrison’s hiring reflects the importance of supporting policies “which improve student achievement.” He describes Morrison as a “leader who has personally carried this mission for multiple districts and will deepen our ability to drive further improvements in education.”

The career change is similar to that of Morrison’s predecessor, Peter Gorman, who left CMS in 2011 to take a job with the nascent News Corp. education division.

“I’m thrilled to join McGraw-Hill Education at such an important time for both the company and the industry,” Morrison said in a statement. “We want to be a strong voice in government affairs to improve the lives of students of all ages.”

Morrison will be a “strong voice” alright —  for Common Core.

McGraw Hill is one of the only two companies named in the Common Core State Standards Public License:

Material Beyond the Scope of the Public License

This License extends to the Common Core State Standards only and not to the examples. A number of the examples are comprised of materials that are not subject to copyright, such as due to being in the public domain, and others required NGA Center and CCSSO to obtain permission for their use from a third party copyright holder.

With respect to copyrighted works provided by the Penguin Group (USA) Inc., duplication, distribution, emailing, copying, or printing is allowed only of the work as a whole.

McGraw-Hill makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy of any information contained in the McGraw-Hill Material, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall McGraw-Hill have any liability to any party for special, incidental, tort, or consequential damages arising out of or in connection with the McGraw-Hill Material, even if McGraw-Hill has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

It seems McGraw Hill and Morrison waste no time jumping into the Digital Learning ‘ecosystem’:

(Hat Tip – Common Core Diva)

 Related:

Posted in Common Core, EDUCATION | Tagged | 1 Comment

Common Core Potemkin Village: Hope Street Group – Money and History

Posted on June 30, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Yesterday, I started writing about a Common Core non-profit focused currently on teachers and training.  That non-profit is called Hope Street Group.

I realized right out of the gate that Hope Street Group was going to be a multi-article project I’d have to break into chunks. So, today we’re going to take a look at the history, the players involved and follow the money

Hope History
According to their website, they were founded in 2003. Hope Street Group takes its name literally — South Hope Street, Los Angeles.

The group claims their objectives are as follows:

This group believed that by infusing diverse understanding and expertise into economic challenges, we could dramatically improve access to opportunity. Since our founding, we have worked diligently to apply this model and incorporate the application of innovation and technology to the education, health, and jobs sectors.

Check out their “impact” in education, health and jobs. At the bottom of each page of those three topics is a link to see ‘previous projects’. GO LOOK.

According to the Hope Street Group’s 2003 IRS 990 filing their objective was, “To expand economic opportunity to all people”.

The original board of directors in 2003 as listed in the 990 filing:

I recommend readers Google some of these original board names.

For example, the Chairman and co-founder, Mr. Auguste has a bio that was archived at the US Dept. of Education which gave some history on his long career with McKinsey and Company.

Auguste’s LinkedIn profile tells how long and includes an almost two year position with the White House. The LinkedIn profile skips a related White House council membership bio, which includes two big Common Core players:

Mr. Auguste also serves on the Board of Directors of the Pacific Council on International Policy, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Board of Trustees of the Center for American Progress, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Auguste is also involved with “New America“, or the New America Foundation (NAF). NAF is a non-profit composed of a who’s who of big money, big business and big politicians. While claiming to be non-partisan, it’s clearly not. See the second half of the article, The Clinton Core Standards for more on NAF.

History Of Big Data Love
Some of the legwork on the history and who’s who of Hope Street Group has been done already by another blog site, ‘Educational Alchemy’, in a 2013 blog post titled, The Road to Hell Is Paved by Hope Street.

Clearly, by that title, Educational Alchemy is not a fan of Hope Street Group. After reading their article, it is easy to see why.

Educational Alchemy saw one of the same warning signs I did – the love of data, data and more data. In particular, the blog post makes a series of connections all tied to McKinsey. Remember the original Chairman of Hope Street was a McKinsey man:

David Coleman, President of College Board and chief architect for Common Core was formerly an Associate as McKinsey.Sir Michael Barber now Chief Education Advisor at Pearson is former partner and head of McKinsey global education (in 2005) practice for McKinsey,and its unofficial motto could be his own: “Everything can be measured, and what is measured can be managed.”

If you think this all a coincidence I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Please read the whole thing and pay attention to the ‘network’ section. Note two of the names, Jon Schnur and Bob Wise.

Schnur has direct North Carolina ties.  Schnur and a fellow named John Lassiter were instrumental in getting Teach for America alum Eric Guckian into the North Carolina Governor’s mansion as McCrory’s education adviser.

Schnur then took off for Washington, D.C. to be a “a senior advisor to President Obama’s presidential transition team and to U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan.”  [Read More About Schnur’s NC Ties]

Bob Wise is the man behind Alliance for Excellent Education, is a pal of Jeb Bush’s and also gets buckets of Gates grants. I just wrapped up a series on the Common Core tied Digital Learning push going on in North Carolina — which tracks back to Mr. Wise.
[Read More about Bob Wise: Down the Digital Rabbit Hole part one, part two, part three]

By the way, Martin Scaglione, the current President and CEO of Hope Street was the President, COO Workforce Development at ACT.  The Director of education engagement and training has 3 years of classroom experience… in Kindergarten.

Hope Money
Office Space NGOThis 2003 filing also showed they had about $65k in revenue in the form of gifts, grants and contributions.

The group’s revenue stream didn’t do well for the first four years, but then took a big leap between 2005 and 2006.

Via the available Hope Street Group’s IRS 990 filings, I’ve managed to timeline their revenue history.  Note that in parentheses next to each year/amount is the grant amount total the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave them that calendar year.

2003 – $65,102
2004 – $28,083
2005 – $55,169
2006 – $269,607
2007 – $877,573
2008 – $971,020  ($225,000)
2009 – $1,184,509  ($925,111)
2010 – $653,213
2011 – $912,169  ($975,000)
2012 – $2,046,598
2013 – $2,187,746  ($950,548 and $100,000)

Hope Street Group’s IRS filings from a ten-year period starting in 2003  and running through 2013 show an overall revenue stream total of $4,988,362.

In seven years, starting in 2008 and running through 2015, Hope Street has received $6,440,864 from Bill Gates.

Beyond 2013, Hope Street received three grants in 2014 and one in 2015 so far.  The total for these four grants is $3,265,205.   View all of the grants.

Given these totals matched with the revenue reported by Hope Street Group, it might be safe to say that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is Hope Street’s biggest donor in the group’s  “Funders” list — by far.

Funders with Common Core histories that stand out in that list are Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, William and Flora Hewlitt Foundation, WalMart, New Venture Fund and The Joyce Foundation.

There’s still more to get into with Hope Street.  I’ll be revisiting the Teacher Voice Network and the “Common Core Teacher Playbook” in the next article.

 

Posted in Common Core, EDUCATION | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Hey, Associated Press? @WRAL? You Missed A Mug Shot

Posted on June 30, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

WRAL has an article * via the Associated Press about the recent changes to the North Carolina voter ID law.  The star of their story is one Charise Dill who claims to be ‘disenfranchised’:

Charise Dill, 25, of Henderson County said in a sworn statement she was twice refused photo IDs at DMV offices. She said she was working two jobs and going to community college and couldn’t afford a photo ID. DMV workers told her she couldn’t get a free ID, she said.

“It was an embarrassing experience and I do not want to experience that again; no one should have to go through this to get an ID to vote,” Dill said. Press Millen, an attorney representing individuals suing in state court, said the “landscape has changed tremendously” with the changes.

*WRAL has removed the article from their site, but it can still be viewed at the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine HERE.

More at Citizen Times.

I’m sure that was embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as missing some details about Charise Dill, including Ms. Dill’s arrest record in South Carolina for shoplifting.

 

Kind of ironic to be arrested for shoplifting when at the time she worked in retail according to her LinkedIn profile. That same profile says she is studying to be a teacher.

According to her Facebook page, Dill still works in retail as an, “Independent Distributor at Independent Distributor for It Works! Global and Cashier at Walmart Past: Dollar General”.

One can’t totally fault the reporter for missing that arrest – their Google was probably broken?

Southern Coalition for Social Justice left Dill’s arrest tidbit out of their article on too. However, there is another interesting claim from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice article on Ms. Dill:

Charise wasn’t able to get her driver’s license that day, but she asked if she could register to vote.  The DMV employee told Charise that she would not be able to register to vote because she did not have a North Carolina photo ID. 

Unfortunately, this DMV employee was incorrect as North Carolina photo identification is not required when completing a North Carolina Voter Registration Application.  Relying on this state official’s advice, Charise left the NC DMV without registering to vote.

Really? She didn’t get registered to vote?

That’s funny, because the NC State Board of Elections has a voter registration record for Ms. Charise Rashaun Dill of Hendersonville.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), BlueprintNC, NC NAACP, NCGA, Reverend Barber, Voting | Tagged , | 12 Comments