This post was superseded at one point and I’m not sure why this post wasn’t eliminated. Now that there are comments it probably won’t be removed. The actual post to read on this issue can be found here:
You may watch the presentation here if you would like. Total time is 45 minutes.
District officials have proclaimed at every meeting since March that parents are wrong to assume that district leaders are talking about politics when they say the
word “democracy”. They are upset that parents actually use the dictionary to define words. They say that democracy is not about politics at all. To them it means ‘from their hearts’ ‘a feeling’, ‘getting along with each other’, a ‘community’, and ‘working together’. They say a small group of parents are defining their words for them and they should be the ones to define their own meanings. Parents say, however, Noah Webster created the dictionary so we would not lose the common meanings of words. Why should we allow a school district to redefine common definitions?
If the district insists on using Goodlad, then why not use his meanings which come straight out of his own books? In Developing Democratic Character in the Young, page 5, Goodlad writes about capitalism.
“A whole new cycle is often put in motion wherein the name of the game is eliminating competition. The human motivation is commonly referred to as greed. What appears then to be a sound economic principle is corrupted by lack of moral principle and compassion for humankind. This abuse discredits capitalism as a potential companion of democracy.”
Goodlad goes on to say,
“The human-induced flaw in the practice of capitalism is, of course, the driving concept of unlimited growth. This puts the economic narrative out of sync with those principles of democracy that stress the good of all and fuels excess claims for growth benefiting everyone.”
Not politics they say? Sure sounds like the hatred of capitalism to me. Clearly Goodlad meant it when he said, “Schooling is a practical, political affair.”
If we want our children to love America and its free market system, why would we let an education reformer teach us that capitalism is incompatible with democracy?
When the district comes up with a Goodlad quote which adorns the walls of the district schools for years, shouldn’t they look up what he meant by the phrase instead of redefining it when parents get concerned? Here is what is found in the dictionary.
Enculturating (Merriam Webster online dictionary) the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values.
Social Democracy (From the online Encyclopedia Britannica) political ideology that advocates a peaceful, evolutionary transition of society from capitalism to socialism using established political processes. Based on 19th-century socialism and the tenets of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, social democracy shares common ideological roots with communism but eschews its militancy and totalitarianism. Social democracy was originally known as revisionism because it represented a change in basic Marxist doctrine, primarily in the former’s repudiation of the use of revolution to establish a socialist society.
Political Democracy (From inclusivedemocracy.org) In the political realm there can only be one form of democracy, what we may call political or direct democracy, where political power is shared equally among all citizens. So, political democracy is founded on the equal sharing of political power among all citizens, the self-instituting of society.
So by dictionary terms, this Enculturating phrase really means “Culturally Assimilating the Young with Practices and Values of a Peaceful, Evolutionary Transition of Society from Capitalism to Socialism by Using Established Political Processes and Equally Sharing Political Power Among All Citizens.
I guess this phrase didn’t fit on their wall.
If you’ve never read the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, you’re missing out on one of the gems of literature. The book is a series of letters from the perspective of
a master devil (named Screwtape) to his nephew (Wormwood) who is a beginning tempter “in the field” trying to win souls for the devil. Screwtape encourages Wormwood and guides him through various episodes in tempting humans to fall into sin. Occasionally he scolds Wormwood for allowing his subjects to become involved in something that may lead them toward the enemy (ie. God).
Sometime after Lewis wrote the book, he wrote an essay entitled “Screwtape Proposes a Toast.” I have a quote from this essay elsewhere on the site but I felt the need to share this clip with you. The essay itself is a satire on the American education system and in this clip, Lewis skewers our system of dumbing down our children in the name of “democracy.”
To read the entire and VERY worthwhile essay, you can find it anywhere online but here’s one link this clip came from (including the site’s bolding).
Now, this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices. Those who were aware of feeling it felt it with shame; those who were not gave it no quarter in others. The delightful novelty of the present situation is that you can sanction it — make it respectable and even laudable — by the incantatory use of the word democratic.
Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level. But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from fear of being undemocratic. I am credibly informed that young humans now sometimes suppress an incipient taste for classical music or good literature because it might prevent their Being Like Folks; that people who would really wish to be — and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be — honest, chaste, or temperate refuse it. To accept might make them Different, might offend against the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group. They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals.
All is summed up in the prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: “O God, make me a normal twentieth century girl!” Thanks to our labours, this will mean increasingly: “Make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite.”
Meanwhile, as a delightful by-product, the few (fewer every day) who will not be made Normal or Regular and Like Folks and Integrated increasingly become in reality the prigs and cranks which the rabble would in any case have believed them to be.For suspicion often creates what it expects. (“Since, whatever I do, the neighbors are going to think me a witch, or a Communist agent, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and become one in reality.”) As a result we now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell.
But that is a mere by-product. What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals.Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, “democracy.” But now “democracy” can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own.No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.
Developers frequently ask school districts to assist in the redevelopment of land. The developer typically asks the school district to provide property tax rebatesto the developer’s project, which decreases the costs of the project, making it more economically feasible (or profitable). The justification given for the tax rebate is that the project will generate more tax revenue in the future for the school district, so the school district should “invest” in the project by giving the developer a tax rebate.
Possibly the largest such tax rebate in the history of Utah ($300 million) has recently been requested from
Alpine School District by Anderson Development through the town of Vineyard for the proposed redevelopment of the old Geneva Steel site. Based on my read of the Utah Taxpayers Association’s review of the request, I believe the Alpine School Board should support approximately half of the proposed $300 million rebate through a redevelopment agency (or “RDA”), but the second half is not justified and should be rejected by the Alpine School Board.
When evaluating a proposed redevelopment project, school boards should ask two questions. First, does the land have negative value? That is, would a developer have to pay someone to transfer ownership in the property? If the answer to that question is, “Yes,” then an RDA may be appropriate.
The second question is this: if the RDA is not approved, will the transactions on the redeveloped site take place in the greater community? If the answer to this question is, “No,” an RDA can also be appropriate. Unlike most RDAs, the Geneva RDA has elements relating to both questions.
The former Geneva site is riddled with useless infrastructure, from deep concrete bunkers to tainted dirt. These relics of the steel plant have imposed negative value on the property. Based on Anderson Development’s projections, about $150 million worth of the improvements contemplated in this RDA are necessary to bring the site to a condition comparable to other greenfield sites. That much of the proposed RDA is appropriate, and should be approved. Without such approval, the land could remain any eyesore for generations to come, and harm the economic development of Utah County.
But Anderson Development is apparently not content with that level of taxpayer investment. They want the Alpine School Board and other taxing entities to grant another $150 million in taxpayer subsidies for their project. This additional investment by the taxpayer is not justified because the transactions contemplated by that investment will occur in the greater community, whether or not this Geneva RDA is approved.
Over the 40-year term of this RDA, Anderson Development hopes to build office parks, retail space and housing. Whether labeled as residential, office space or storefront, all the development contemplated in this portion of the Geneva RDA is retail. Tax subsidies do not stimulate retail economic activity; rather, they rearrange which city reaps the sales taxes associated with the retail activity.
If the Alpine School Board participates in the second $150 million of the Geneva RDA, the district will get nothing in return. Consumers won’t increase their spending because of the new retail location.
Every transaction in the proposed Geneva RDA will occur somewhere in the greater community without that subsidy. The transactions may be in Lehi or Orem, but they will occur. In other words, if the Alpine School Board approves the second $150 million request, they will essentially be shifting millions of dollars from existing cities and businesses in the Alpine School District to the city of Vineyard and Anderson Development. So, while this request clearly makes sense for both Vineyard and Anderson Development, it does not make sense for all the other cities and businesses in the district.
The plight of the Cottonwood Mall illustrates the folly of retail RDAs like the second half of the Geneva RDA. Almost two years ago, the Granite School Board approved an RDA to subsidize the redevelopment of the Cottonwood Mall.
The Cottonwood Mall proposal would have used nearly $100 million over 20 years to facilitate retail, office space and residential units.
Although the subsidies were approved, no redevelopment of the Cottonwood Mall has taken place. The reason for the failure is simple:
tax subsidies do not change the amount of consumer spending. They merely move an economic transaction from one place to another. They spur no new economic activity.
In summary, the Alpine School Board should separate the proposed Geneva RDA into two $150 million pieces. The piece that eliminates the site’s negative value is appropriate, and the Alpine School Board should participate. The second piece, which subsidizes economic activity that would happen without the subsidy, is inappropriate, and the School Board should reject it.
• Joel Wright, of Cedar Hills, is an attorney.
Original Post Located at http://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/utah-valley/article_4ff275c7-cc36-5187-a8ae-8e00befea572.html
At what point does experience becomes entrenchment? Conventional wisdom suggests: “There is no substitute for experience.” “Experience” does not necessarily equate with longevity in office. It could mean a person gets one year of experience followed by eleven years of doing the same thing over and over. Long-term service also allows for an unhealthy familiarity with management. The check and balance between the legislative school board and the executive administration can be lost.
Ossification (solidification or entrenchment) in office is a clear and present danger, especially in times of significant change. If the current incumbents running for re-election all serve another term, they will have been in office an average of twelve years. Twelve years ago the Y-2K meltdown was looming large, 9/11 was unthinkable, the high tech bubble was building, unemployment was around 4%, the fear of global cooling was being replaced by a fear of global warming, and George “W” was running for his first term in office. Long-term office holders often have trouble adjusting to changing conditions and become blind to important options that are needed for the survival of the institution. Many suggest that the U.S. educational system is now in a survival crisis, pitting needs against special and/or entrenched interests.
The current ASD administration, with the support of the current School Board, is making the rounds to all the schools presenting their case for a new bond issue. This is the path administrators have followed for 100 years. They are proposing to increase our debt from the current $389,000,000 to around $600,000,000 in a deteriorating economy. We are in a post 9/11 era that demands a fundamental shift in our thinking and a return to a check and balance condition in the Alpine School District.
We need school board members who have fresh ideas, who are innovators and entrepreneurs by profession, who recognize the political indoctrination that is creeping into our schools, who are achieving academic excellence with their children. Tim Osborn is the newest board member and has led a one-man crusade for parental involvement and innovation in the school system. We need to elect others who share his vision. We need to use technology more, focus on basic skills, teach the importance of a constitutional republic and provide a way for parents to get more involved in their children’s education.
The Alpine School District personnel are campaigning for $250M more in new bond debt to be on the ballot in 2011. Even though the ASD is one of the best-run districts in the nation, it is already $389M in debt and spends 67% of our local property taxes and the education system spends 100% of our State Income Tax. In addition, the school district has the authority to levy a “capital tax” from which they collected an additional $70M in addition to the $230M bond that was floated in 2006.
Robert Smith, Assistant Superintendent, Business Administrator explained that the district uses fifteen-year contracts (many districts use 20 and 30 year loans) so they can get better rates of interest and that they only borrow against the authorized money as needed thus creating a stair step effect in the debt. Mr. Smith reported that ASD pays about $30M a year against the principle plus interest payments. If the interest rate is 4%, ASD must be paying $15M a year in interest. The interest alone is equivalent to one new elementary school a year. At the $30M a year pay off rate, the district is 13 years in debt.
The question that must be asked is, “How much is too much debt?”
The auditor for the City of Highland observed recently that the city is over extended. Its debt limit should be no more than 60% of its revenue. If we use this same yardstick, ASD’s debt should be no more than 60% of $364M (it’s 2009 revenue) or about $220M. In other words, ASD should not borrow another dime for nearly six years if its revenue stream remains at the 2009 level.
Utah schools are in a very difficult situation. The average family size is the largest in the nation and at the same time the Federal Government is confiscating our land and thus reducing our ability to educate our children. The Grand Staircase Monument alone cost Utah schools an estimated $2B. President Obama directed the cancellation of 70 drilling permits this year thus further reducing our ability to fund education. The Federal Government now controls 70% of the state.
State legislators are moving to exert our state rights but it may be years before we see much relief for our schools. In the meantime we must find ways to educate our children. It appears two things must happen. Parents must take on a greater role and the school system must adapt. We need public schools to be a resource center for parents and to provide basic instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic. Gone are the days of “Enviro-Ed” and free lunches.
We have the technology and ingenuity in Utah Valley to construct a model educational system. A Pony Express analogy illustrates the point. We can hire better riders and buy faster horses or we can embrace technology. No matter how heroic and courageous the efforts of the Pony Express riders and owners, they could not deliver the same service as a little old man sitting at a desk tapping on a telegraph key. Education in America has been hijacked by “horse traders” intent on selling us mules for a Pony Express like educational system. The equipment and the methodology both need an upgrade.
In lieu of bonds for buildings, maybe we need to look at a private funding model and use technology assisted teaching methods in this 21st Century.
(Answer: One was a socialist revolutionary terrorist who served time in jail before he realized the best way to revolutionize America is through the public schools. The other socialist already knew this. )
The Alpine School District (ASD) Board continues to embrace The Agenda for Education in a Democracy by John Goodlad, socialist/atheist/humanist, even though many parents have spoken up against it. Check out just how similar these two Progressive social reformers are and ask yourself…
Is THIS why I send my child to school?
Note: Bill Ayers was a revolutionary terrorist in the 1960′s through his leadership in the Weather Underground which sprouted from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). He went into hiding for 10 years to escape going to jail a second time. He came to the conclusion that instead of bombing federal buildings, the best way to revolutionize the United States into socialism is through teaching teachers, reforming the public school system and influencing the next generation. Then began his education career and he, along with John Goodlad, teach at the conferences that the ASD administrators and board attend to learn about John Goodlad’s Agenda for Education in a Democracy.
| John Goodlad | Bill Ayers |
| Current Professor, College of Education at the University of Washington. | Recently retired professor of 20 years, College of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago. |
| University of Chicago
Earned a Ph.D. and was on the faculty
|
University of Chicago
Recently retired Aug 2010. Denied Emeritus Status by unanimous vote, although taught at U of Chicago 20 years. Reason: Ayers praised radical revolutionaries such as Sirhan Sirhan who killed Robert Kennedy |
| Prolific Author
Published over 30 books, 80 book chapters, and more than 200 journal articles about education reform. |
Prolific Author
Written at least 23 books on education reform |
| Humanist
Author of Toward a Mankind School: An Adventure in Humanistic Education “The curriculum of the future ‘will be what one might call the humanistic curriculum.’” (John Goodlad, NEA Journal 1966) |
Humanist
“For humanists and democratic educators, the largest, most generous purpose of education is always human enlightenment and human liberation, and the driving principle is the unity of all humanity. We embrace the conviction that every human being is of incalculable value.” (Ayers commentary of Eugenics and Education, July 2008) |
| Democracy
Author of Education and the Making of a Democratic People with Roger Soder and Bonnie McDaniel Goodlad says we will not have the schools we need, “until community leaders, educators and policymakers agree on the democratic purpose of public schooling and work together toward its advancement.” (Seattle pi opinion, November 28, 2008, Judging the Bush years: Well-educated or much-schooled?) Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy (Developing Democratic Character in the Young) Agenda for Education in a Democracy (AED) (Teacher training to advance democracy training, National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) |
Democracy
Bill Ayers, “The State of Democracy in America: Education Reform and Civic Engagement” In the 1960’s belonged to Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in Chicago which eventually became the Weather Underground under Ayer’s leadership, a terrorist organization to revolutionize America. “Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens. Participatory democracy, by contrast, requires free people coming together voluntarily as equals who are capable of both self-realization and, at the same time, full participation in a shared political and economic life.”(2006 speech at the World Education Forum, Venezuela with President Hugo Chavez)
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| Follower of John Dewey
(Socialist) In Praise of Education (John Dewey Lecture Series)Earned John Dewey Society Outstanding Achievement Award (2009)
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Follower of John Dewey (Socialist) Ayers said, “John Dewey was one of the brilliant, brilliant writers about what democratic education would look like and was himself an independent socialist. (October 2006 interview of Bill Ayers in Revolution (the self-styled “Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA”) |
| World Renowned Education Speaker | World Renowned Education Speaker |
| Morals Wrote The Moral Dimensions of Teaching with Roger Soder and Kenneth Sirotnik
“Educators must resist the quest for certainty. If there were certainty there would be no scientific advancement. So it is with morals and patriotism.” (Education for Everyone, p. 6.) |
MoralsWrote Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom“Even though we think of ourselves as political, we weren’t politicians. We were people who had a moral vision of what was possible.” (At a 2007 reunion of former members of the Weather Underground and Students for a Democratic Society)
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| Spoke at NNER 2005 Conference with ASD Superintendent and Administrators | Spoke at NNER 2005 Conference with ASD Superintendent and Administrators. Keynote Address at Goodlad’s NNER Conference October 2010 |
| Proponent of Social Justice “It is my expectation that Teacher Education for Democracy and Social Justice will become a rich resource for continuing this multi-layered conversation-from democratic belief to democratic action-that is the hallmark of educational renewal.” (Goodlad’s forward to Teacher Education for Democracy and Social Justice, Nicholas Michelli and David Lee Keiser) | Proponent of Social JusticeWrote Education in and for Democracy: The Case for Social Justice in the ClassroomTeaching for Social Justice: A Democracy and Education Reader (1998)
“I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice.”(Bill Ayers’ 2006 speech at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in front of Pres. Hugo Chavez). |
| Recognized as a leader of educational reform Goodlad’s best known book, A Place Called School (1984), received the Outstanding Book of the Year Award from the American Educational Research Association and the Distinguished Book of the Year Award. He is a past president of the American Educational Research Association and, in 1993, received that organization’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Educational Research.
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Recognized as a leader of educational reform In 1997 Chicago recognized him as Citizen of the Year because of his key role in advancing educational reform in the city’s public schools.
Ayers was elected Vice President for Curriculum Studies by the American Educational Research Association in 2008. |
| Child Belongs to the State Goodlad wrote, “A century has passed since the prescient educational historian Ellwood Cubberley wrote the epigraph with which this writing began: “Each year the child is coming to belong more to the State and less and less to the parent.”
“My only disagreement with his observation pertains to the implication of our owning children. We parents do not own our children; we just rent them for a while. Given the extent to which what he was troubled about has expanded, however, his reference to state ownership may well be appropriate.” (2010, Washington Post, Goodlad on school reform: Are we ignoring lessons of last 50 years?
|
Child Belongs to the State |
| Reason for Public Education “Schooling is a practical, political affair.” (Developing Democratic Character in the Young)
“It was clear a year later that health care and schooling were high on President Obama’s action agenda.” The nation’s cultural readiness for a long-overdue great turning—might come to pass. “Clearly, there must be a great turning in schooling. The new will not evolve out of what we have now or try to fix. It is not broken. Indeed, it is very stable and solid, guided by ideologies that will not be disturbed, no matter what the evidence to their contrary. “What we must do now nationwide is begin the 20-or-more-year process of creating a new tomorrow. “Education is the great equalizer. Unfortunately, in policy, family, community, the marketplace, institutions, and more, it turns out not to be.” (2010 Washington Post article by Goodlad) “A standardized curriculum of basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic cannot prepare people to participate in a democracy.” ”Enlightened social engineering is required to face situations that demand global action now.” (John Goodlad, Preface to J.M. Becker: Schooling for a Global Age)
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Reason for Public Education “We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution… overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” (Bill Ayers’ 2006 speech at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in front of Pres. Hugo Chavez).
“Education either reinforces or challenges the existing social order, and school is always a contested space…” (2006 Speech, Venezuela) “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education– a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation.” (2006 Speech, Venezuela) “Education—teaching and schooling—either reinforces or challenges the existing social order. For humanists and democratic educators, the largest, most generous purpose of education is always human enlightenment and human liberation, and the driving principle is the unity of all humanity.” (Bill Ayers.wordpress.com, review of Eugenics and Education by Ann Winfeild)
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| Role of Parents
“Parents do not own their children. They have no ‘natural right’ to control their education fully.” (Developing Democratic Character in the Young, pp. 164.) “Most youth still hold the same values of their parents…if we do not alter this pattern, if we don’t resocialize, our system will decay.” (Education Innovation, Issue 9.) |
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| Education and Politics“Schooling is a practical, political affair.” (Developing Democratic Character in the Young)
“The state we should strive for is better described in Deweyan terms as a social democracy.” (John Goodlad, 2001: Developing Democratic Character in the Young) |
Education and Politics “…the separation of the concept of progressive education from the concept of politics and political change. You can’t separate them.” (2006 interview with Bill Ayers, Voice of Revolutionary Communist Party, USA) |
News Alert: 12/7/10: Ayers says “I never denounced Weather Underground violence”
Before Alpine School District (ASD) recently scrubbed their website clean of any embarrassing links to hide the fact that they are still associating with socialists, they had some pretty interesting pages to read through.
It was becoming so amusing to see what else would pop up on an ASD page. I’ll miss those days. On the bright side, it’s becoming just as entertaining to see how they are scrubbing the site clean, hoping that naive parents will say that all is well in Zion once more. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, they say, even though they know he is a socialist and humanist defining education in a mostly LDS community. They forget we’ve been cautioned to beware of the false philosophies of the world, especially humanism and anything which would take away freedoms like socialism.
We’re sure this fall cleaning has nothing to do with the upcoming November election in which 4 board member seats are up for grabs. Or does it?
You can scrub, but you can’t hide!
More scrubbing recently: After the writing of this article and just 2 weeks before elections, the ASD quietly ripped the 30 ft long Enculturating sign off of the wall of the Professional Development Center without informing parents or the school board. All that’s left is a bad patching job and some touch up paint. No announcement has been made to disconnect with John Goodlad however. Conversations with Superintendent Vern Henshaw and spokesperson Rhonda Bromley prove just the opposite. According to them they stand firmly behind John Goodlad’s philosophies 100% and have no intention of changing direction.
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