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by Donna Garner
9.6.09
Also interviewed was Neal Frey who is the director of Educational Research Analysts, a 50l(c)(3)
non-profit organization. Educational Research Analysts is not permitted
to campaign for particular political candidates nor do any political
lobbying, and it does not. Frey’s organization received $788,000 in
contributions between 2002-2007.
Is it really important that Texas Freedom
Network is a 50l(c)(4) organization and Educational Research Analysts
is a 50l(c)(3) organization? What does it matter?
New Social Studies standards are presently in the pipeline in Texas .
These new Social Studies standards will lead to new textbooks. Texas is
the largest K-12 purchaser of textbooks in the U. S. Therefore,
whatever is put into Texas ’ textbooks influences what is put into
textbooks used in public schools throughout the country.
Social Studies textbooks have the power to indoctrinate students’
thinking, and leftwing political groups know this. They want to control
the way children think. They want to rewrite history and de-emphasize
the role of the historical documents upon which our nation is founded.
They want to implement political correctness into every Social Studies
textbook in our nation’s schools.
Do parents want a leftwing political machine (TFN)
influencing the content of their children’s Social Studies textbooks;
or do they want a well-respected, academically capable, non-political
group such as Educational Research Analysts influencing the content of
Social Studies textbooks?
The differences between TFN and Educational Research Analysts are vast.
Neal Frey and his staff at Educational Research Analysts actually read
every page of the textbooks, develop detailed critiques, provide a list
of the factual errors in the textbooks, rate textbooks, and then
present their findings in public hearings before the elected Texas
State Board of Education, the Legislature, and to national
organizations.
Educational Research Analysts sends their textbook rating sheets (for free)
to every school in Texas to help educators make informed choices about
textbooks. Educational Research Analysts functions very efficiently
with a small staff and lives within its means on less than half of what
Texas Freedom Network receives in its Education Fund. Educational
Research Analysts accepts no contributions from textbook lobbyists or
political candidates and organizations yet has nationwide influence
because of its esteemed long-term service to the school children of our
nation.
On the other hand, Texas Freedom Network is an aggressive, leftwing,
political organization that is completely out of step with today’s
parents who want their children to learn foundational skills that will
help them to become well-informed leaders of tomorrow.
TFN has a well-defined political/social agenda for our school children;
and the purpose of TFN is to practice the politics of personal
destruction on the conservative members of the Texas State Board of
Education and anyone else who holds the same principled beliefs.
TFN staffers have never bothered to read an entire textbook, critique
it, research the contents, list factual errors, and go through the
laborious yet legitimate textbook adoption process. TFN prefers to hold
press conferences, highlight statements in textbooks that are taken out
of context, and steal the attention of the all-too-willing liberal
media who then go out and spread misinformation and bias across the
country.
In recent years, TFN has lost the battle over the English / Language
Arts / Reading standards. The ones passed by the majority of the
elected SBOE members are much improved over the old ones and stress
phonics, grammar, usage, spelling, penmanship, expository and
persuasive writing, research writing, and the great pieces of
literature along with their characteristics.
TFN also lost the battle over the new Science standards that will now
require teachers to teach all sides of scientific theories including
the weaknesses of evolution.
After TFN suffered these resounding defeats with the SBOE, Kathy Miller
decided to go across the street to the Texas Legislature where she
found TFN board member, Rep. Donna Howard.
Working with Rep. Howard, the ACLU Texas, Alliance for Clean Texas,
Center for Public Policy Priorities, Equality Texas, NARAL Pro-Choice,
Sierra Club, Stand Down Texas, TAPPA, Texas Impact, and The Texas
Observer, TFN filed 15 anti-SBOE bills during the 2009 Legislative
session.
Only one out of fifteen bills passed the Legislature, and that bill simply requires that the SBOE meetings be video streamed.
Kathy Miller thought she and TFN had achieved a great victory when they
managed to convince 11 Democrat Senators to vote against McLeroy’s
confirmation as chair of the SBOE even though 19 Republicans voted for
him. Because of the two-thirds rule, however, McLeroy was not
confirmed; but an equally capable new chair was appointed by Gov. Perry
-- Gail Lowe. Lowe holds the same conservative views about education as
McLeroy does. TFN has been defeated once again!
Because Texas Freedom Network has injected itself into decisions that
impact Texas public school students, I need to ask parents:
Do you want TFN (a leftwing, liberal organization that lobbies and participates in political campaigns)
influencing the direction of your children’s textbooks? Do you feel
that TFN represents your views? Do you think TFN genuinely wants what
is best for your children; or is TFN simply following a politicized
agenda that, if allowed to prevail, would do long-lasting damage to
your children’s lives?
To help you answer these questions, let me tell you about the people who are associated with TFN.
In 1995, TFN was founded by Cecile Richards, daughter of Texas '
liberal Democrat Governor, Ann Richards. Cecile is the president of
Planned Parenthood Federation of America and still serves on the TFN
Board of Directors. Cecile was deputy chief of staff for Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and worked with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). SEIU is closely associated with ACORN.
When Cecile left for Washington, D. C., Samantha Smoot took Cecile's
place. When Samantha left for Washington , D. C. in 2005, she went to
work for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest homosexual organization
in the country.
TFN, Planned Parenthood, and the Human Rights Campaign work together as “triplet sisters.”
The Chair of the TFN Education Fund is Janis Pinelli, who gave campaign
contributions to Obama, Hillary Clinton, Emily’s List, the Texas
Democratic Party, and Rick Noriega for Governor.
Also on the TFN Education Board of Directors is Dale Linebarger who is
treasurer. He is the Senior Advisor to Linebarger Goggan Blair &
Sampson. This firm started collecting debts for the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS)
in 2006 after a generous lobbying effort of half a million dollars to
pressure Congress to hire outside bill collectors instead of requiring
the IRS staff to do the job more inexpensively (Business Week, 8.25.06).
Dale Linebarger made political contributions to Obama, Ruben Hinojosa,
Al Franken, Lloyd A. Doggett, Ken Salazar, Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee, and Border Health PAC.
Why does Border Health PAC sound familiar? According to Texas Monthly (Aug. 2009),
Border Health PAC gives politicians huge contributions “to order
expensive medical procedures” and has come under scrutiny because of
the New Yorker (June 2009) article that stated the costs
of treating Medicare patients in McAllen are twice the national
average. “The primary cause of McAllen ’s extreme costs was, very
simply, the across-the-board overuse of medicine.” Dale Linebarger gave
monthly contributions to Border Health PAC throughout 2008.
Rev. Dr. Larry Bethune is also on the TFN Board Education Board of
Directors. He is the senior pastor of University Baptist Church ( Austin , Texas ).
As stated on its website, UBC is sometimes “in conflict with the views
of the wider religious community and secular society…in the 1990s it
ordained a homosexual deacon.” Bethune has stated that he opposes
“attempts to dilute, distort, or censor the teaching of evolution in
biology textbooks.”
Also on the TFN Education Board of Directors is Diane Iresone (Clinical Social Worker)
who has given political contributions to Obama, John Kerry, Lloyd A.
Doggett, John Edwards, Emily’s List, Barbara Boxer, and Hillary
Clinton.
Rebecca Lightsey is on the TFN Education Board of Directors and is an
attorney and executive director of Texas Appleseed that focuses on
social justice issues. Lightsey worked on Governor Ann Richards’ staff
and supported Democrat Rick Noriega for Governor of Texas .
Rhonda Gerson is the Chair of TFN and has given campaign contributions
to Hillary Clinton, Democrat Senator Carl Levin, and Emily’s List.
Texas Representative Donna Howard (Democrat)
is a board member of TFN. NARAL Pro-Choice has given Howard a 100%
rating. Texas Eagle Forum gave Howard a rating of 8% in the 2009
legislative session.
After reading this list of left-wing individuals who are involved with
Texas Freedom Network, I hope the next time you hear Kathy Miller
interviewed by the media, you will carefully “consider the source!” She
wants to demonize the people who represent traditional values and
undercut their efforts to raise academic standards for our students.
Thankfully we have seven solid conservatives on the Texas State Board
of Education; and we as conservative Texas parents and citizens need to
support them in their efforts to put Texas public schools on the road
to authentic education reform. Three of these conservatives will be up
for re-election in 2010. I trust that you will be ready and willing to
support their campaigns with your time and monetary assistance.
Contact information for all SBOE members is provided on the Texas Education Agency's website at:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3803
LIST OF SBOE CONSERVATIVES WE MUST SUPPORT IN 2010
Don McLeroy (R - Bryan/College Station)
Cynthia Dunbar (R - Richmond )
Ken Mercer (R - San Antonio)
LIST OF OTHER SBOE MEMBERS UP FOR RE-ELECTION IN 2010
Rene Nunez (D - El Paso )
Rick Agosto (D - San Antonio)
Lawrence A. Allen, Jr. (D - Houston)
Tincy Miller (R - Dallas)
Bob Craig (R - Lubbock)
CURRENT SOCIAL STUDIES DRAFTS IN PROGRESS IN TEXAS
United States History Studies Since Reconstruction (1 credit):
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/teks/social/USHistory073109.pdf
United States Government (1/2 credit): http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/teks/social/USGovernment073109.pdf
Other Social Studies draft documents can be found at: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/teks/socialstudiesTEKS.html
Donna Garner
wgarner1@hot.rr.com
Writer/Consultant for MyStudyHall.com
http://www.mystudyhall.com
English Success Standards (K-12)
http://mystudyhall.com/myskillbuilder/articles/ENGLISH%20SUCCESS%20...(K-12).mht
How We Teach Changes Brain Size
Jessica Hulcy
Texas Home School Coalition Association REVIEW © May 2004
Does
how we teach our children physically change their brains and the way in
which their brains are wired? In her book titled Endangered
Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It,
Jane M. Healy, Ph. D., relates experimental findings which compare the
brain size of three groups of rats. The three groups had identical
food, water, and cages, except the
“enriched rats” were given all kinds of stimuli
with which to experiment. The second set of rats merely watched
the first group of rats interact with the stimuli, while the third
group of rats was kept in another room without any stimuli
and without any stimulated rats to watch. The results of this
experiment showed that increased environmental enrichment
created “brains that were larger and heavier, with
increased dendritic branching,” which means better
communication from nerve cell to nerve cell.
Dr. Shirley O’Rourke, an education analyst and a public school kindergarten teacher, affirmed the importance of experiences when she commented to Healy, “Without experiences, there are no concepts; without concepts, there’s no attention span, because they [the students] don’t know what people are talking about.”
Dr. O’Rourke laments that today’s children come to school with fewer social skills, less language ability, less ability to listen, and less motor ability than in years past. “Years ago the children had experiences, their parents took them places, they talked to them instead of at them, they read to them . . . But today . . . what some adults seem to be calling experiences is to go buy a workbook,” concludes O’Rourke.
Whatever does rat research have to do with teaching home school children the basics? My answer is, “EVERYTHING!” If we want a child to be an excellent writer and reader, we first start with hands-on experiences that build concepts and hold the child’s attention. Because home schoolers have fewer than twenty kids per class, hands-on experiences are more doable than in a classroom. Further, since home schools have only one teacher, Mom, it is possible to integrate all academic subjects into a unit. The unit studies method intertwines hands-on experiences with the unit’s reading and writing, locking the child’s mind on the wavelength of the unit, thereby increasing retention, since all subjects are interrelated. How much easier it is for a child, while studying medieval times, to write about the parts of a castle if he has just built one out of appliance boxes and labeled the parts with index cards, or, while studying animal classification, for him to write a report on the starfish that he has not only dissected but also dressed as, and enacted! The unit approach never requires children to write about unrelated subjects out of the blue. Rather, it allows children to write about the subject in which they are immersed.
I recently received an e-mail from a woman who loved the hands-on approach for her children but was married to a clean-freak, Felix Unger-type. While the mother wanted the children to set up a model ear under the dining room table that they could crawl through, the father preferred that the children fill in many pages of workbooks. To him, messiness was non-learning, despite the fact that research indicates learning and retention increase when experiential activities are added.
Fortunately, the mothers of Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, and Teddy Roosevelt allowed their young boys’ genius to develop amid a mess. These mothers’ tolerance of messes netted the 20th century the light bulb, the airplane, and a U.S. president. I am convinced that the Yankee ingenuity of yesterday has been stifled today by adults’ compulsion to make children fill in workbook blanks neatly! Do you want kids with bigger brains? It is simple: allow numerous messy experiences to stimulate small brains, and weave all of your literature, history, science, and writing into one focused unit. TA-DAH! Bigger brains.
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