The PRU Crew thanks our faithful readers for the forwards.
item #1
Park Ridge - Niles School District 64 Needs You!
Strategic Plan News
The District is inviting members of the community to volunteer to serve on five Action Planning Teams to identify the specific steps needed to achieve the five identified goals. Volunteers are invited to let us know of their interest by submitting a form, either on-line or by mail. For a form and more information: http://www.d64.org/site/files/strategicplan_8_09_flyer.pdf
item #2
Sincere Ignorance Meets Conscientious Stupidity!
To District 64 Parents:
As you may have heard, President Barack Obama will address the school children of America at 11 a.m. (CST) on Tuesday. It is the first day of school for many districts across the country. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the President’s address “will be an inspirational speech to welcome students back to school, challenge them to work hard and recognize that education can help them to achieve their future dreams. It will not address political issues.” The President is scheduled to speak for 15-20 minutes.
We have been informed that the President’s speech is expected to be posted sometime Monday to the White House Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov), so that it may be read in advance.
In District 64, schools will make opportunities for our students to view (or record for later viewing) the address as schedules permit and the age of the students is appropriate. No one is required to view the address. If plans are in place to have classes view the speech, alternate activities can be provided. Please contact your child’s teachers if you do not want him or her to participate.
President Obama’s address on Tuesday may be watched live via the Internet by visiting the same White House Web site noted above. C-SPAN, the cable public affairs network, also will broadcast it live on TV, radio and the Internet.
Best wishes for a relaxing Labor Day weekend.
Sally Pryor, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Seriously, the ruckus raised over this issue should be an embarrassment to every thinking conservative and Republican we know. And that back peddling dumbass from Florida needs a trip to the woodshed.
September 8, 2009
Another Tuesday Two-fer!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
29 comments:
Presidential speech to schoolkids? What goes around comes around. Cut and paste this into your browser:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/When-Bush-spoke-to-students-Democrats-investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html
I've been on a couple of D-64 "volunteer" committees, going back to the "Yes/Yes" new Emerson committee over a decade ago. And from my experience I can tell you that these committees are nothing more than feel-good con jobs intended to create the impression that the District is seriously seeking and getting community input, when in fact it's just a lot of window-dressing.
Just look at the Strategic Planning Team members - it's stacked with 17 D-64 teachers or administrators and 3 school board members. If they're spread over 5 "action teams", that's 4 per team, or more than enough to dominate each team. That's how the District controlled the "Yes/Yes" citizens' committee.
If D-64 really was trying to get legitimate citizens' input, it would have no more than one teacher and one administrator per "action team," NO school board members, and from 5-8 taxpayers, no more than half of which would be parents of current students.
But bet on them rounding up the usual suspects for a bunch of feel good exercises. And if you don't believe me, just read the entire second page of the link: no mention of kids acquiring knowledge, just a lot of the same old warm and fuzzies about "critical thinking" (as if you can think critically without actually knowing some facts), "creative expression" (because there's no real objective measurement by which to judge "creativity," is there?) and "problem solving" (once again, without knowing some facts).
Garbage in, garbage out.
I was confused about the flak on this from parents who had no idea what was going to be said bythe President since it wasnt even recorded! I think some of these parents need something ELSE to focus on.
I watched the speech. it's great. Perhaps he will inspire some of the kids, or...wow...become a role model for them to work hard to achieve their potential.
Rorschach, are you an idiot? Because the idiot Democrats went there that makes being an idiot o.k.? The best conservatives can do is play a stupid game of gotcha back?
PRU is right. There are conservative Republicans who are embarrassed by this mess, and I am one of them.
I also unhappy that Sally Pryer would even consider giving in to let idiot parents demand teachers make busy work because god forbid their kids see the President on television talking about staying in school.
Thank you (I think) for the heads up about the Strategic Planning committees. Everyone who has ever complained about the direction of the district now has a chance to put in their $.02 Speak up now or shut up and stop complaining.
PRU:
Thank you!! Honest to god I have received these e-mails, along with hearing all the yammering on the "news" and it makes me heart sick. What ever side of the political spectrum you are on, this is just crazy. When I was in school the president speaking to students ment something. The idea that people honestly believe that he is going to "brain wash" their children" is really a frightening picture of how divided this country is. The extremes have taken over both parties.
even Laura Bush thinks it is a good idea. She said so on the news! Everyone needs to take a deep breath and stop being so paranoid.
Hey Rorschach, read it and weep.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/orl-loc-maxwell-greer-obama-090509,0,3762186.column
There once was a political operative who loved to tell crowds he had a simple way of explaining to children the difference between Republicans and Democrats.
"Republicans get up and go to work," he would tell his son. "Democrats get up and go down to the mailbox to get their checks."
This man not only talked to his son about Republican values, he went into public-school classrooms and talked about them as well.
That man is Jim Greer — the same Jim Greer who, as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, just threw a nationwide hissy fit, claiming that the classroom is no place for politics and Barack Obama's "indoctrination."
One Seminole County mother, Barbara Wells, remembers the day Greer spoke to her son's sixth-grade class. "My son said he made some sort of Hillary Clinton joke," she recalled.
But you know what? Wells didn't pitch a fit.
She didn't call up the local TV station to scream about Republican indoctrination.
Instead, she advised her son: "Whatever you are told in life, remember there are two sides to every story."
In fact, Wells didn't even think much about Greer's foray into her son's classroom until she saw him on TV complaining about Obama.
There's no longer any question: Greer is a hypocrite.
What remains to be seen, however, is whether mainstream Republicans in Florida will allow him to drag them deeper into the divisive and irrational fringes of their party.
Mainstream conservatives, after all, are being left behind.
The speech just finished and I thought it was very nice. I don't know if my kids watched it at school or not. I hope so. We can't emphasize the improtance of education enough.
so is Mayor Schmidt going to address the kids tomorrow via a TV broadcast?!!
I took a break from work and watched it as well as did MANY of the people I work with. There was nothing but positive reactions about kids seeing this speech. There are a lot of folks who are going to have to scrub very hard to get that egg of their faces.
11:46am--nah, they won't...they ENJOY being bitter!
What an excellent speech it was!
"Commit to" your education. "There is no excuse for not trying." "Be careful what you post on Facebook.""You have a responsibility to yourself" to discover what you're good at.
Are all the nitwitted "thought police" out there (who call themselves "conservative" but sound like they could be running the old Soviet Union) just so reactionary, or are they just so anti-Democrat, or are they just so anti-black (or, in the case of Barry Obama, anti-half black)?
I could care less about President Oblabla's speech.
I read the goals for the schools in the link posted by PRU. What a pile of bs. It is like est meets academia and they all lived happily ever after.
Pure bs.
Nice call out PRU. It's good to see you give equal treatment.
Anonymous September 8, 2009 1:27 PM
I agree that it all sounds rather wishy washy and touchy feely.
I also think Anonymous September 8, 2009 9:09 AM is right about speaking up and not just complaining.
I think 12:46 summed it up best.
Good thing Sally Pryor is retiring, what a moron to even suggest the kids would do anything other then listen to the President.
I do not want to appear to defend Sally Pryor. I certainly wish she would have told who ever called or e-mailed her to "pound sand". Having said that, I understand she and the other admin. were in an extremely difficult situation. I would save the moron label for anyone who was running around for a week scared that the president was going to brain wash their child and for anyone who believe what they were saying.
Anon@7:48 --
Sage. The Crew's sentiments exactly.
By the way. My daughter saw the speech at school today and it was a FANTASTIC discussion point for our family over dinner. She got double teamed (in a good way), first by the president and then by my wife and I reinforcing how important school, an education and personal responsibility are for all of us. These are messages I believe we all do our best to pass along to our kids and this was a great chance to discuss them again. All in all a pretty good message.
Not one time did she say "but daddy, what about his birth certificate??"
Anonymous @ 8:06,
Ours too!...though we did have to spend a portion of the conversation assuring our posterity that a missed recess was not the end of the world.
i'm glad to see PRU identifying itself as Republican
Anon@9:11 --
How did you draw that conclusion?
uh oh, now the name calling starts!
NEVER call me a Republican!
YIKESs
In regards to District 64, Nothing will change until the person at the top is changed.
And the person at the top may change DNA but not direction unless the board puts its collective foot down. Good luck with that.
Exactly right, 10:18.
We will not get meaningful improvement at Dist. 64 until we get a school board majority of school board members who aren't just Caucus-picked pawns for the D-64 Administration and the "Park Ridge Education Association" (a/k/a, the teachers union).
I challenge anybody to name, and then defend the competency and performance of, ANY Dist. 64 board member since 1995, when the Board brought in Supt. Fred "Mr. Smoothie" Schroeder from Schaumburg to sell us the "middle school concept" so that the District would be forced to go from one Jr. High (Lincoln) to two, causing us to knock down what was then the newest school in the District and spend $20 million for the "New Emerson"?
The District has been on the financial and academic skids since then, if you look at the ISAT scores since then, and the state financial reports until we passed the big tax increase in 2007.
We got rid of Frimark, so now we have to get rid of his alderdunces in 2011. And in that same election we need quality people to run against the tools regularly fielded by the Caucus.
Bush 41 once spoke with the kids and the other side called for hearings ?
anon 2:28:
What is your point? They were idiots too! As my mom used to say....if your friend jumped off a bridge would you?" How about we stop using idoicy in defense of idiocy? For a person to be fearful of the president giving an education speech to students because they honestly believe he is going to indoctrinate them is idiocy, lunacy, studidity...you pick the word.
Post a Comment