You’re invited to attend the Principles of Liberty Seminar

Presented by: National Center for Constitutional Studies
Sponsored by: Constitution Week USA

Discover the 28 fundamental beliefs of the Founding Fathers which they said must be understood and perpetuated by every people who desired peace, prosperity, and freedom.  This positive, exciting message will give you a lasting understanding of the Principles of Liberty. Thousands of people have enjoyed this seminar all over the country.

Date: Saturday, July 18th Time: 8:00 am – 4:30 pm

Place: Mesquite High School,  500 S. McQueen Rd., Gilbert

$25 per person (not recommended for children under 12)
$40 per couple Tuition includes the book “The Five Thousand Year Leap” and lunch.

Register here.

For more information, contact Sarah Crawford: (480) 236-2326.

The threat from within

Last month, a Saudi Arabian man named Raed Abdul-Rahman Al-Saif, placed three bags on the Tampa, Florida airport security conveyor belt as he made his way toward his gate to board US Airways flight 1077 to Phoenix, Arizona and Portland, Oregon. He never made it to the gate.

Read the rest of this compelling article titled The County and the School of Hate, by David R. Stokes, a Virginia-based minister and broadcaster.

Earlier this year, Seeing Red AZ posted a video and article on this subject. We urge you to read Rev. Stokes article and revisit our post. This is vitally important information.

The good news comes too late

The latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds that voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 key electoral issues, including, for the second straight month, the top issue of the economy.

Republicans also narrowed the gap on the remaining two issues, the traditionally Democratic strong suits of health care and education

The percentage of voters trusting the GOP more on economic issues is 46% to 41%,. This is just the second time in over two years of polling the GOP has held the advantage on economic issues. The parties were close on the issue in May, with the Democrats holding a one-point lead.

Voters not affiliated with either party trust Republicans more to handle the economy by a wider 46% to 32% margin.

Last week’s report of 9.5 percent unemployment, the highest since 1983, raised doubts about the economy and the president’s handling of it. Consumer and investor confidence is now down to the lowest levels in three months. Just 39% now say President Obama is doing a good or an excellent job on the economy while 43% rate his performance as poor. Those are by far the weakest numbers yet for the president.

Tenure: A teacher speaks

Among today’s letters to the editor in the daily newspaper was this offering by Amy Helseth, a self-described tenured third-grade teacher.

Her thoughtful letter is besieged with comments which can be seen following her opinion piece. The commenters take her to task, question her veracity, and pointedly remind her that the phraseology that is currently in use is “continuing status” rather than the word “tenure.”

Longtime educators choose to obscure the term, aware of the negative regard in which the policy of a permanent job guarantee is held — particularly in today’s uncertain employment climate, with so many American workers losing their jobs and homes.

Education unionists stage protest at AZ legislature

Members of the Arizona Education Association (AEA) union were out in force at the state Capitol today demonstrating against a five-percent cut to education. The boisterous crowd, bearing signs and chanting slogans, caused security to briefly lock the doors to the House of Representatives.

In April, House Majority Whip Andrew Tobin (R-Dist.1) wrote an exposé on some of the tactics engaged in by the teacher’s union and colluding Democrat legislators regarding sending layoff notices intended to frighten teachers — many of whom still had jobs.

The AEA is under the aegis of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest union in the country, and one of the most powerful leftwing political forces nationwide. Read about some of the group’s alliances here.  The facts will surprise you.

Former Education Secretary Rod Paige apologized after he called the union a “terrorist organization,” a few years ago, but said he stood by his claim that the group uses “obstructionist scare tactics” in its fight over the nation’s education law.

The answer was right there all along

The answer stares at us from the first sentence of the article in the daily newspaper – giving the soft, human interest version of the nearly two decades old Flores v. Arizona case —  in which the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling this past week.

Under the headline Mom at head of suit still worried about Arizona’s English learners, we read this:

The Flores in Flores vs. Arizona is a quiet, 42-year-old mother of three daughters who’s lived in Nogales for decades and still speaks much better Spanish than English.

Her 23-year-old daughter, Miriam, originally the center of the case, is now attending Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, with the hope of becoming a nurse.  Obviously she is proficient in English.

The question is, why is the mother, who has “lived in Nogales for decades,” still not conversant in the language she cared so deeply about that she allowed herself to be the focal point of the test case? Is there any incentive for her to do more for her younger daughters than she did for Miriam?

Major victory in Flores ELL case as U.S. Supreme Court decides in favor of state of AZ

In a 5-4 decision, the U. S. Supreme Court has taken a major step toward ending a 17-year legal battle today.

The justices reversed the decision of the lower courts and sent the case, known as Flores v. Arizona, back with instructions to consider improvements the state has made in the way schools teach English language learners.

Read the decision in Horne, Superintendent, Arizona Public Instruction v. Flores et al here.

“This is a major step to stop federal trial judges from micromanaging state education systems,” said state schools superintendent Tom Horne, who along with former Speaker of the AZ House of Representatives, Jim Weiers, asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on the case. “This affirms that important value that we the people control our government and our elected representatives and not ruled over by an aristocracy of lifetime federal judges,” the daily reports.

The State of Arizona had previously been ordered by Federal District Judge Raner Collins to deposit millions of taxpayer dollars into a fund for the children of illegal aliens in public schools. The required payments began accruing at the rate of $500,000 a day and rose incrementally to $2 million a day. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wiped out the $21 million fines, and additionally ruled that English-learner students must pass the AIMS test to graduate from high school.

The Arizona Senate Republicans report that test results have proven that Structured English Immersion works and is the best way to teach English learners a command of the language. These test results also vindicate the Legislature’s fight to help students learn English. There is strong evidence that Arizona’s program leads the nation.

Ah, the joys of belonging to a teacher’s union

Approximately 700 New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries of $70,000 or more, to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that’s what they want to do. They practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They also have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its “rubber rooms” — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings, ABC News reports.

The city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year to pay full salaries to these non-working teachers. The department blames union rules.

“It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract,” according to a spokeswoman.

But New York isn’t alone. The Los Angeles and Chicago districts, also bound by unions, employ the same paid banishment.

Just when we think we’ve seen the worst of Linda Valdez….

….comes clean with desire that  GOP hold “permanent minority status”

Beginning her absurd column “Mexicans today are the Irish of yesterday,” by telling us more than we want to imagine about her unusual romantic life and subsequent marriage to a Mexican immigrant, Valdez pounds her pro-illegal immigration drum more ferociously than ever.

Ina an argument that doesn’t fly, she likens illegal Mexicans who are flooding into the United States in violation of our law and national sovereignty, to the Irish who came through Ellis Island to be lawfully processed after arriving via an ocean voyage. 

Then she dives into a tirade — hurling brickbats at Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, who stands in opposition to La Raza (The Race) studies in the Tucson Unified School District.  Horne exposes the Reconquista instruction as “ethnic chauvinism.” The program teaches students in American schools that the American Southwest belongs to Mexico and should be reclaimed.

Valdez contends this instills a “sense of pride and political savvy in Latino kids.”

After recounting her attendance at a seminar put on by Humane Borders, a group that places water stations in the desert to aid illegal crossers, she lays blame for heat-related deaths on those who believe a nation’s borders are legitimate and should be respected. She calls them “Demagogues, mean-spirited politicians and other blowhards spewing corrosive blather.”

Then she makes a not-so-startling admission. 

“Horne and the GOP-led Legislature,” Valdez opines, “have attracted the attention of teenagers who usually have better things to do than watch politicians make fools of themselves. What those kids learn from this assault on their education will shape their political views — and help relegate the Republican Party to permanent minority status. This should trouble the mainstream Republicans who used to bring something to the political debate besides ideology and intolerance.

But it doesn’t bother this wife of an immigrant one little bit.”

Finally, she confesses to what we have long ago figured out.

Mark your calendar! Wednesday, June 17, 6:00 PM

 

The PAChyderm Coalition announces its upcoming meeting

An evening with Arizona Department of Education Superintendent

TOM HORNE

-  What is happening with school district finances?

-  Who is sponsoring proposed legislation to close the loop hole in the law allowing illegal immigrants to attend Arizona Charter Schools?

-  Are children from foreign countries illegally attending Arizona public schools and what is being done about it? 

-  Is the A.I.M.s test worth the cost?

 El Paso Bar-B Que Grill   43rd Ave and Peoria,      Dinner: 6:00 PM

Space is limited. E-mail: azpatsfan@cox.net and make your reservation now!