Put down that fork, you scoundrel!

Regardless of what Mom told you, stop eating your vegetables

The United Nations Children’s Fund has released a report detailing that in Mexico, 300,000 youngsters are toiling in the fields picking crops. According to the study, 43.5 per cent of Mexico’s population are children under the age of 18

We are certainly not in favor of child exploitation or the high levels of illiteracy that goes hand-in-hand with this abuse of children—imposed upon them by their impoverished parents.

What we do question is the above-the-fold headline in today’s daily: Child labor in Mexico puts food on U.S. tables.

Here’s their take on the story: About 300,000 youngsters such as Adriana (who attends school only one hour a day) work illegally in Mexico’s fields, the U.N. Children’s Fund says, making child labor a major link in the chain that increasingly supplies American dinner tables.

The logical conclusion is that we, the eaters of salads, and consumers of vegetables, should not harden our hearts to the plight of these families as they sneak across our borders in violation of our law. After all our gluttony is the real reason for their need to invade our country.

Get it?

The Global Warming Swindle

Weekend viewing to balance the religion of Al Gore

Sick of Global Warming Propaganda? Skeptical about what you’re hearing? Wish someone would produce some serious balance?

We urge you to watch the most important documentary you will never hear about elsewhere, here it is: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

Each educational segment is ten minutes or less. Watch as scientific authorities challenge what has become the most defining moral debate of our age.

A testament to educational excellence with a liberal dose of hubris

Charles Ray Fuller, 21, a man long on nerve and short on smarts, has been arrested for attempting to pass a $360 BILLION check, which he claims was given to him by his girlfriend’s mother to start a record business, the Dallas Morning News reports.

ASU’s overpaid King Crow issues threats

Budget cut would be equivalent of wiping out funding for 6,000 students

Arizona State University President Michael Crow is resorting to intimidation, stating that the state’s largest university may have to limit enrollment if Arizona’s legislature imposes a10 percent cut this fall.

Crow said a 10 percent cut to the university’s budget, or $50 million, would be the equivalent of wiping out funding for 6,000 students. University officials are considering enrollment limits as one option for dealing with the loss of revenue.

“That’s not an option we want,” Crow warned.

Implicit in the threat he suggested that officials have not yet determined how much they would have to limit enrollment if the cuts occurred.

The move would be a sharp departure from ASU’s policy, which is to admit every student who meets the university’s academic qualifications, according to the daily.

Seeing Red AZ is indeed Seeing Red on this menacing tactic of Crow’s. But, we also have a suggestion or two to rein in the budget cuts:

1. Crow and his wife, Sybil Francis, should take a pay cuts.

2. Defund the programs, (so beloved by the open border advocates at the Arizona Republic) Crow has put in place to provide scholarships for illegal aliens at the state university.

Those two efforts alone might loosen up enough cash for King Crow to manage. Since all other government agencies are belt-tightening in the wake of Gov. Napolitano’s budget crisis, why does Crow caw that he should be exempt by threatening Arizona’s students?

Ever wonder what your kids are learning at school?

Political correctness and promoting the ‘gay’ agenda trumps history and geography

 The daily reports that about 275 students at Gilbert Public Schools’ Desert Ridge High in Mesa’s city limits remained silent for most of the day to raise awareness about the bullying of gays and their straight supporters, according to school officials.

Students wore yellow cards explaining the annual Day of Silence observance and after school, a few gathered for a discussion led by guidance counselors and supportive staff members.

Monday’s Day of Truth, sponsored by a faith-based Scottsdale group, the Alliance Defense Fund, encourages students opposed to homosexuality to speak out.

This year, Mission America, requested that parents keep their children home on the Day of Silence, a move which the districts disapproved, although a number of families were opposed to their children’s participation in such an observance.

Principal Daniel Coombs, said about 200 to 250 students of the 2,400 enrolled were absent Friday, an unusually high number.

Coombs said overall, the day was successful because students made it seem like business as usual. “I feel bad for the several that chose not to come to school because they did not get to see what I’d been telling people all week,” Coombs said. “I’m really proud of all the kids.”

Hard evidence that employer sanctions law is working

In two adjacent articles, the daily is engaged in a hand wringing frenzy over declining schools enrollments.

One article lays the blame on “changing neighborhoods and sinking housing prices.”

But the underlying reason for the declines according to the second article was…you guessed it: The state’s employer sanctions law is the culprit.

The upside of his phenomena is providing parents the smaller classes they have long desired for their children minus the intrusion of English language learners who hindered class progress.

As illegals self deport or move out of Arizona, some districts are losing elementary school age students. However, teens are reported to be staying behind when their families move, enabling the high schools to maintain consistent enrollment numbers.

Where those teens live and how they support themselves is anyone’s guess. Thoughts of bands of unskilled adolescents, roaming free without adult supervision conjures up far more disturbing images than declining enrollment.

Also of interest, it took 14 contributing reporters to get this story out. Remember when veteran reporters, working solo, could crank out a fact-laden news article in record time, minus grammatical and spelling errors?

On all too many issues, the dictum has been: As California goes, so goes Arizona

Let’s hope this lunacy is not emulated here

Parents of an estimated 166,000 children in California are eagerly awaiting a state appellate court ruling on whether they have a constitutional right to home-school their children without a teaching credential.

That question sprouted unexpectedly on Feb. 28, when a panel of three judges ruled that parents or tutors of children who are home-schooled must be certified by the state, basing their ruling on a rarely enforced state education law. Few parents knew the law existed.

The Washington Post has more on this matter here.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone on record as saying the “outrageous” ruling should be overturned and Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction, assured parents they will still have the right to home-school.

The unelected and unanswerable judges have ruled from on high. What is the parental recourse?

A prom worth emulating

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has come up with an novel idea for prom night festivities that would win praise from most parents. The students seem to like it, also. More than 200 teens have already signed up.

Targeted at upperclassmen, the May 3, event is open to any Valley high school student ages 16 - 18. And the cost including food and photos is a mere five bucks.

Read the interesting East Valley Tribune account, including the ‘rules,’ here.

Why it’s good to have a top-flight attorney as AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction

The daily reports that State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has announced that in the wake of a denial on Flores v. Arizona from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he intends to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Fundamentally, there’s an issue of principle involved,” Horne said. “It boils down to who should control the state’s programs for teaching English to non-native speakers: The people, through their elected officials, or a judge.”

Earlier this week, the notoriously left-of-center Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied state officials’ request to reconsider its February ruling against the state’s English-learner program. Horne, along with Republican legislative leaders, had asked the Appeals Court for an en banc review, in which a larger appellate panel would review the case.

They have received a commitment from former federal special prosecutor Ken Starr for assistance in handling the case.

Phoenix Union challenges report on dropout rates

New national stats on educational spending released by Census Bureau

The report by America’s Promise Alliance, Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation, cites a great disparity in graduation rates between urban and suburban areas. The report found that 17 of the nation’s 50 largest cities had graduation rates lower than 50 percent. That compares with 74 percent of students in suburban public high schools.

According to statistics contained in the report, the graduation rate in the Phoenix Union High School District at 58.3 percent, which Phoenix Union officials dispute. They say that 73 percent of their students graduate per year.

That complete report is available here.

Also, according to another report just released by the U.S. Census Bureau, school district spending per pupil was highest in New York ($14,884), followed by New Jersey ($14,630) and the District of Columbia ($13,446). States where school districts spent the lowest amount per pupil were Arizona ($6,472), Idaho ($6,440) and Utah ($5,437).

The national average was $9,138 per student in fiscal year 2006, an increase of $437 from the previous accounting in 2005.