Happy Mother’s Day

 

American-born impressionist Mary Cassatt (1844 - 1926) specialized in paintings depicting mothers and children. Our selection for this Mother’s Day, The Child’s Bath, is one of her most celebrated.

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?

But, “It’s for the children”

Two reasonable bills dealing with abortion reached the governor’s desk on Friday.

One required parental consent for an underage girl to receive an abortion and the other established state penalties for physicians who perform a gruesome practice of late-term pregnancy termination known as partial birth abortion. Both were given a quick slash of Napolitano’s veto pen. 

 According to the daily, Planned Parenthood of Arizona applauded the vetoes.

The governor’s famous mantra has been, “It’s for the children.” She neglected to tell us that “it’ was death.                

Prometo lealtad a la bandera de los Estados Unidos de América

American Second graders taught Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish

Tucson Unified School District’s Gale Elementary School has a novel way of instructing second-graders in the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Teacher Anne Lee has the tykes say the pledge in three languages: English, Spanish and American Sign Language.

As expected, not all parents are pleased, as evidenced here.

This is the response one parent received from the principal:

Thank you for your interest in public education, Tucson Unified School District and Gale Elementary School.
Paula Godfrey
Principal
Gale Elementary School

This contentious issue previously arose in Maryland as covered at that time in the Washington Post.

“When you put your Jesus glasses on you can’t see the truth”

World Net Daily carried this story when it first broke. Although Capistrano Unified School District dismissed complaints by parents and students, U.S. District Court Judge James Selna has ruled that Sophomore honors student Chad Farnan’s case can go forward.

The teacher, James Corbett, met his match when Chad recorded some of his inappropriate and bigoted rants.

Here is the account as carried in the Orange Country Register. The case is expected to be heard this month.

Governmental erosion of parental rights

First we read that California is poised to criminally charge home schooling parents.

Now, this from Europe, where two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five-month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each parent was also fined 4,100 euros ($8,000).

Center for AZ Policy provides valuable information on pro-family legislative issues

To check the status of 2008 bills making their way through the legislative process, click here.

Check CAP’s website for important information regarding legislation relating to Arizona’s families.

Parents of 166,000 students could face criminal charges

‘Breathtaking’ decision on home schooling now moving to California Supreme Court

WorldNetDaily reports that a “breathtaking ruling” from a California appeals court capable of subjecting the parents of 166,000 traditional home-schooled students in the state to criminal sanctions, will be taken to the state Supreme Court

Arizona has been on the forefront of the choice reform movement. According to a Goldwater Institute report, nearly a fifth of Arizona students are in charter schools or private schools or are being home-schooled.

Vigilant Arizona parents need to watch the California legal wranglings carefully.