Holy crap. This seems, oh I don’t know, TOTALLY OUTRAGEOUS. But you decide. According to this, Organizing For America has infiltrated public schools, looking for students to help advance Obama’s agenda. Look!
And there’s more! There is a suggested reading list.
Yeah. The OFA is encouraging high schoolers to read Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. That’s appropriate.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but public schools are funded with taxpayer dollars, right?
Gawd. Mini-Mock is soooo going to private school.
Great way to wake up on this beautiful Sunday morning. Thank God my kids are in a charter I love.
Wow, the Hitler Youth all over again….
And…. chalk this up as reason number 485,673 why my husband and I have chosen to homeschool our bunch.
I found this one funny:
WEEK 3: WHAT IS ORGANIZING: THE POWER OF GOOD DATA & REPORTING
and this is pretty amusing as well:
WEEK 8: WORKING WITH THE MEDIA
I was intrigued by the lesson of week 2, which included ‘Basic Van Training’. I was able to find out a bit more after a Google search, which turned up this document out of Arizona:
http://azdems.3cdn.net/e612b7ebb441521a55_pjm6ixayr.pdf
Here is an excerpt:
“For most users, the VAN’s principle functions fall into two major categories – tools for creating targeted lists of voters from the database and tools for moving newly collected data on those voters back into the database.”
Getting targeted data from the database involves two choices:
Deciding which voter should be in the list – Organizers use ‘Create a New List’ to build lists of targeted voters, using criteria as simple or as complex as they need. Using any pieces of information in the data base – including geography, demographics, voter history, and previous survey results – users can create
a list of voters, then massage it by adding or removing certain voters to get to exactly the target list they are looking for.
Choosing a form of output for that voter list – Once they’ve selected a target pool of voters, organizers have a choice as to how they use the list they have created. They can print the list for phone banking or canvassing, print labels for a mailing, merge the list into letters they can print, export it for use by a
vendor, or send the list to a Palm Pilot for door-to-door canvassing.”
I’ll let everyone form their own opinion of training high school students on how to use this software.
In Week 6, I see that they are expected to recruit 2 or more volunteers to assist them with their preparations for a Brown Bag lunch. Interesting. Week 7 is also interesting; students will be taught how to identify the stakeholders in a coalition and are instructed to ask the coalition how their resources are allocated, how they hire staff and what their process is for decision making. They follow that up by asking for a copy of the groups organizational chart.
They’re also expected to give interviews about their training to local media, essentially becoming a spokesperson for the campaign. (Wait, this isn’t a campaign, its … uhm… what is it?)
Out of the whole document, the one thing that really seemed creepy to me was this paragraph:
“Have Intern agree to participate in a December conference call with OFA headquarters (and ideally a special guest). During the call, we can unveil our larger strategy for student and youth strategy in the states.”
While home schooling and private school are great, that doesn’t help when elections are held and the mass of public educated sheep that have been force fed this agenda vote as one to elect their favorite candidate. This sort of thing needs to be fought even by those who have kids in private school, home school, or public school. This is very disturbing.
Jim parents have to start somewhere. The homeschoolers may be the future leaders who help take our country back if the government doesn’t ban it. Indoctrination begins at home. Give your children the tools they need to fight this with their teachers and peers.. I have.
And we wonder why our kids are not competitive with the rest of the world?
Too much politics, sex, and social justice in the schools, not enough reading, writing, math and science.
Anybody have any thoughts about that Obama address to school children this fall? Foot in the door.
I recall from my childhood days how the schoolkids had to sing hymns to Dear Leaders and distribute “literature” to the unwashed masses, including one’s parents and relatives. However, we were not asked to mobilize voters – with elections guaranteed to provide 99.7% of votes to Party candidates, there was no need.
Hitler’s youth, or the Union of Young Communists from the former East Block in Europe. (still in force in Cuba) That’s what this is.
My guess is that this is just another lie. Just like the O’Keefe as a pimp/ACORN thing.
Wait – what part of the O’Keefe as pimp/ACORN thing was a lie? The fact that he’s not an actual pimp?
And THIS is why I stay very involved in what my kids do/don’t participate in, in school. I’m sure their teachers are sick of me, but I’m frequently emailing/calling to get further info on projects or auxiliary groups, to make sure they match up with our family rules/beliefs. If they don’t… my kids aren’t part of it. Period.
Oh Mock! The whole O’Keefe thing was fake. The footage was doctored, he filmed those people illegally and edited it to look worse than it really was and if you can’t see that, I’m sure PS can change the subject to something else.
Ha! And you probably believe everything you read.
Only if you write it, PS.
Oooh BURN!!
“Infiltrated”? I remember nearing the end of high school and getting propositioned to intern for any number of things on any given day. The only way this would be a real story is if public schools were purposefully not passing along opportunities to intern for Republican or conservative groups. I might be wrong, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Forget O’Keefe — this smacks of the same manufactured outrage that came along with Obama’s speech to schoolchildren (which, as it turns out, was also a non-event).
Megan: It is one thing to intern for a politician, but it quite another to intern for a PAC. Learn the difference, and if you don’t think subtle indoctrination, discrimination, and intimidation take place in our schools and emanate from the teachers, then you are either blind or fully indoctrinated. I will say one thing for my daughter’s liberal teachers…THEY OPENLY ADMITTED IT! At least they were honest, too bad it didn’t work.
Fine — my point still stands. If the school purposefully passed out information about internships only for Democratic PACs, then there would be a problem. If it was mandatory for the school to pass out this information, that would be a problem. If it was mandatory that students all over the country receive this information in school, that would be a problem. The article linked makes no mention of any of these things happening. If you were opposed to ANY sort of political internship opportunities being passed out in schools, you’d have a stronger point (or any point at all, really).
Do I believe there is bias and discrimination and indoctrination in schools? You betcha. I’ve had teachers with expressly liberal viewpoints and expressly conservative views. I am certain I have been discriminated against for my views on more than one occasion (but I doubt you’ll believe that). As for teachers admitting a liberal bias — well, they should and I’m glad to see you recognize that. A professor of mine used to say that he would tell us exactly where he stood, and that any teacher who did otherwise was doing a grave disservice to his students. All teachers teach from a perspective, and any that claim to be unbiased are liars. Sure, an educator should try their best to keep personal opinion out of the classroom, but no one is perfect. Even subconscious word choice can influence a classroom. Students deserve to know what perspective they are being taught from, don’t they?
“All teachers teach from a perspective, and any that claim to be unbiased are liars.”
I have to disagree with you here, Megan. In my classroom(s), I teach from a perspective of the freakin’ information at hand. The actual material that I’m paid to teach. My students have absolutely NO idea whatsoever what my political affiliation is, nor will they. I never, ever inject my opinion about politics in the classroom. And I don’t ever plan to. That professor of yours that said he’d be doing you a disservice if he didn’t tell you exactly where he “stood?” I believe that guy was full of complete **** – but it’s nice that you ate it up with a giant spoon. Interesting how you did that without question, huh? That speaks volumes about indoctrination right there, don’t you think?
I’m also not a LIAR because I choose to not spew my political views in the classroom. What kind of a statement is THAT? It simply doesn’t belong in the classroom. And, I think teachers who do inject it are lame. They are the ones doing their students a disservice. Frankly, they’re doing a piss-poor job teaching the subject they’re being paid to teach.
Should Mock have said something about how she’s opposed to ANY sort of political internship opportunity being passed out in the schools? Possibly. But being in a college atmosphere, the vast (and I mean VAST) majority of instructors/professors are liberal. I would also venture to say that high school teachers also lean to the left. There’s a definite imbalance, and if you think there isn’t, then wow. Wake up. You really did eat that spoonful with some gusto.
Nice blanket statement there to try to squelch what you feel is another bad blanket statement. But it simply doesn’t hold water.
Megan, I don’t think my political views are a secret here, but my current and former students have no clue how I lean and they are mighty curious. Some have even gone as far as to ask my friends from college etc., but I’ve schooled everyone that my students aren’t to know. So, they keep searching and wondering.
The ones on the left are convinced I’m a raving neo-conservative and the ones on the right are convinced I’m a communist. So, no sale.
Megan: As to the teacher comments I will leave off with the exception of one thing that I pointed out to a liberal teacher, which took the wind right out of his sails. If liberals were so true and correct in everything, then there would be no need for indoctrination, people would come to the conclusion on their own. I don’t think you have a full grasp of exactly what indoctrination is. A good teacher plays devil’s advocate btw.
As to the PAC’S, the problem is this is the president’s PAC! How in the heck do you know whether other PAC’s are allowed in or not? You made an assumption there. My point still stands. TOO MUCH FREAKIN’ SEX, POLITICS, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE SCHOOLS! What is more, what is taught is slanted, incorrect, and full of holes, so they might as well not teach it. If this keeps up your children will not be innovators, they will be laborers for the Chinese, and Obama concurs with me on that one.
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I don’t know what you teach, Daisy or majordawg, and I suppose if you teach something like math or history or any of the hard sciences, there is no reason to talk about politics, ever. I should have been more clear, and said that the particular professor I’m speaking of teaches courses in religion and gender studies (you know, one of those totally useless, elitist subjects). These are classes on theory, and these theories frequently have political undertones. This professor believes that it is useful for his students to know what theories he subscribes to in order to more carefully evaluate his lectures. This way, if his own personal bias towards one manner of thinking manifests itself in his lecture, consciously or unconsciously, a student is able to identify that manifestation and do with it what he or she will. Identifying one’s stance on subjects that superficially have nothing to do with politics often reveals one’s political leanings (and least in the disciplines I’m referring to). I could have been more clear, but I’m not writing a damn dissertation here. Oh, and to say that you never let any of your personal feelings influence any of the words you choose in a classroom, even subconsciously? Well, unless you’re teaching math or hard science, I have a really, really hard time believing that. I mean, I’m sure you make a point to leave the politics at the door, and that’s great, but unless you’re just spitting out straight facts all of the time, bias is going to creep into it.
Oh, and Daisy, I said in my last post that I believe there is bias in schools. I think it can go both ways, but you’d have to be a fool to claim that teachers of any kind don’t tend to be liberal. I don’t claim to know why that is, but I will say I’ve always thought it was interesting that highly educated people lean to the left. I really have no idea why…
Probably because they’re “highly educated” in crap like “gender studies.”
I teach Economics. No room for bias there, right?
I have taught genetics – no room for political views there? What a bunch of nonsense! Megan has managed to do several things at once: state a falsehood, insult the not so “highly-educated”, and confuse “education” with knowledge.
As to the absence of bias in hard sciences: how about that Global Warming “science?”