Parents' Rights Bill Passes House

[Carborendum]

https://apnews.com/article/parents-rights-education-book-bans-9073f42e2bfda393d39dd8cb7b2cc8f4

In a completely partisan vote, House Republicans passed the parents' rights bill which allows parents to have access to the school curricula which their children are being taught.  It will, most likely fail in the Senate.  But there is a chance that we may have three defectors.  But, of course, Biden will then veto it.

It is easy to say that all we'll have is stalemate -- a whole bunch of symbolic votes in the House, signifying nothing.  But that may not be so.  I say "may" because I see the silver lining.

Biden has already been touted in a number of news sources across the spectrum as having "pivoted" towards the center.  As long as the House GOP continues this route in highlighting the topics that the Dems simply will not vote for, then the swing voters and even the more moderate democrat voters may favor a GOP Presidential candidate.  

Keep up the pressure of these "symbolic" votes.  It is actually going to work over the course of this next 18 months.

[Guest Godless]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

Biden has already been touted in a number of news sources across the spectrum as having "pivoted" towards the center. 

He's always been a moderate. Why do you think the party establishment rallied behind him instead of Liz Warren?

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

As long as the House GOP continues this route in highlighting the topics that the Dems simply will not vote for, then the swing voters and even the more moderate democrat voters may favor a GOP Presidential candidate.  

Keep up the pressure of these "symbolic" votes.  It is actually going to work over the course of this next 18 months.

Alternately, voters will see a GOP that's incapable of getting any legislative traction.

[NeuroTypical]

 

It's important to know what gets zero democrat votes (and a couple republican no votes as well):

[Carborendum]

14 hours ago, Godless said:

He's always been a moderate.

Uhmmm..  The guy who made up the story of his father being pro-gay in the 1950s? ... was always a moderate?

On the one hand, I know where you're coming from.  In the past, he has presented himself as a moderate.  On the other hand, that has been a lot less true in the past several years.  And we're talking about today, not 10 years ago.

And here's an article about how his words don't match his policies/actions.

Here's a few on how moderate Democrats don't seem to align with him.

Democratic moderates are Biden's big Capitol Hill headache

Democrats still back Biden, but evidence of unease among moderates

And yes, he has some problems with everyone.  This is because he simply doesn't have a position.  He only has an agenda to keep his position/influence.  He's an opportunist.  He's all over the political spectrum because he doesn't believe in anything.  He's doing whatever he can to maintain influence.  He's an influence peddler.

14 hours ago, Godless said:

Why do you think the party establishment rallied behind him instead of Liz Warren?

Well, if you listen to liberal media, it is because he was an old, white, straight man.  I'm fairly certain you were aware of this being the message across all the media during the primaries.  All the liberal media was saying it.  They said, "Hillary Clinton proved that a woman can't be elected president in this country."  They said the same thing about gay men when talking about Buttigieg.  Do you really think the conservative media was saying that?

That was the only reason he was the primary winner.  The only alternative was Sanders. And, let's face it.  No one really likes Sanders.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Carborendum

[scottyg]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

And yes, he has some problems with everyone.  This is because he simply doesn't have a position.  He only has an agenda to keep his position/influence.  He's an opportunist.  He's all over the political spectrum because he doesn't believe in anything.  He's doing whatever he can to maintain influence.  He's an influence peddler.

Bingo.

[Backroads]

I was annoyed by this bill, but I understand not all states are the same. Are there actually places where parents can't look at the curriculum? In my experience it's always been a matter of going to the school and looking at the curriculum.

[zil2]

48 minutes ago, Backroads said:

Are there actually places where parents can't look at the curriculum?

Yes, and in Utah.  This from a teacher who is the grandson of my neighbors.  Even the teachers didn't have access until fairly close to the start of classes.  Everyone (else) was told that it was copyrighted material and if they wanted access, they'd have to pay the copyright owner (absurd amounts of money).  This was a subset of the curriculum, related to woke nonsense.  Grandson resigned over it because he refused to teach it.

[Backroads]

23 minutes ago, zil2 said:

Yes, and in Utah.  This from a teacher who is the grandson of my neighbors.  Even the teachers didn't have access until fairly close to the start of classes.  Everyone (else) was told that it was copyrighted material and if they wanted access, they'd have to pay the copyright owner (absurd amounts of money).  This was a subset of the curriculum, related to woke nonsense.  Grandson resigned over it because he refused to teach it.

Interesting. Maybe I've just been lucky enough in my districts. Even at my school we get the curriculum months ahead of time.

My other questions as I've been perusing about this bill is, what if parents in a community can't agree on the school curriculum? I've mentioned before some of the psychos I've seen. What happens if a school can't make everyone happy? 

Edited March 25, 2023 by Backroads

[Guest Godless]

23 minutes ago, Backroads said:

My other questions as I've been perusing about this bill is, what if parents in a community can't agree on the school curriculum? I've mentioned before some of the psychos I've seen. What happens if a school can't make everyone happy? 

That's what school boards are for. You're never going to appease 100% of the parents, but you can vote for board members that you feel reflect the best interests of the kids and parents.

[zil2]

34 minutes ago, Backroads said:

What happens if a school can't make everyone happy? 

As my dad used to say, you can't please everybody, but with a little effort, you can make them all angry.

[NeuroTypical]

Oh, I saw an article in an archaeological magazine about the oldest set of records that could be considered “meeting notes”.  I forget how many thousands of years old, or whether it was Mesopotamia or ancient Greece, but they were meeting minutes from a conference between educators and parents. The parents were demanding changes in the curriculum, the educators were pleading for more funding.

This issue is as old as civilization itself.

[Carborendum]

3 hours ago, Godless said:

That's what school boards are for. You're never going to appease 100% of the parents, but you can vote for board members that you feel reflect the best interests of the kids and parents.

It would be great if schoolboards listened to parents. 

Instead, we've seen report after report, video after video of boards cutting off the microphone as soon as it was revealed that the speaker's intent was to object to woke curricula. 

Other boards would simply look at their phones and dismiss the person when their time was up -- they wouldn't answer questions from the parents.  NEXT!  They didn't even engage on any level.

Other boards would schedule the parents and other participants who agreed with them to speak first, trying to run out the clock.  They would let all these favorable individuals talk WAY over their time limit.  Then they would try to keep anyone else from talking by either shortening their allowed time, or simply ending the meeting because there was no time left.

Allowing open and honest debate is what parents wanted.  And they never got it.

Conservatives were sticking to the rules as far as schedule and allotted time.  Liberals didn't honor that system.

Now that conservatives took over many school boards through elections, the liberals will now point to the parental rights bill when conservatives actually follow the rules -- and cut them off for going over their time limits -- and say that they now feel disenfranchised by those evil transphobes for cutting them off.  Well, you went over your time limit which was the same limit for each speaker.  What do you want?  Favoritism?

[Guest Godless]

7 hours ago, Carborendum said:

It would be great if schoolboards listened to parents. 

Instead, we've seen report after report, video after video of boards cutting off the microphone as soon as it was revealed that the speaker's intent was to object to woke curricula. 

Other boards would simply look at their phones and dismiss the person when their time was up -- they wouldn't answer questions from the parents.  NEXT!  They didn't even engage on any level.

Other boards would schedule the parents and other participants who agreed with them to speak first, trying to run out the clock.  They would let all these favorable individuals talk WAY over their time limit.  Then they would try to keep anyone else from talking by either shortening their allowed time, or simply ending the meeting because there was no time left.

Allowing open and honest debate is what parents wanted.  And they never got it.

Conservatives were sticking to the rules as far as schedule and allotted time.  Liberals didn't honor that system.

Now that conservatives took over many school boards through elections, the liberals will now point to the parental rights bill when conservatives actually follow the rules -- and cut them off for going over their time limits -- and say that they now feel disenfranchised by those evil transphobes for cutting them off.  Well, you went over your time limit which was the same limit for each speaker.  What do you want?  Favoritism?

Seems like the system is working like it's supposed to, though in my son's school district the conservative board challengers were badly beaten. 

[NeuroTypical]

10 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Instead, we've seen report after report, video after video of boards cutting off the microphone as soon as it was revealed that the speaker's intent was to object to woke curricula. 

Along with that, I'm seeing report after report, video after video, of elections throwing out woke board members, and conservative boards implementing policies.  Sounds like you might need to alter your tiktok algorithm - it seems to only be feeding you one side of the available clickbait and outrage p0rn.

[Traveler]

I will say a few things about education – While I was working over seas (Asia) I was informed that 40 years ago the best students (top 10%) came to the USA for higher education (collage) to return home for the best paying jobs.  As I understand now – it is the bottom 10% come to the USA for college and they are putting the USA students to shame. 

Regardless of whatever anyone thinks about education in the USA – it is no longer competitive on the world stage.  It is not uncommon for students in the USA to graduate high school with poor reading and math skills.  My father was, for part of his life, a teacher.  He believed that it did not matter how hard or easy a teacher made passing their class – that it was always the same students that passed or the same students the failed.   He thought it best to make the class difficult to challenge the best students.

What is the saddest part to me of our education is the inability to identify genius.   Most genius in the USA are not discovered until college and half the student population does not go to college.  I believe the main reason is that many students with learning disabilities or difficulties remain in regular classes requiring extra resources focused on them.

 

The Traveler

[Carborendum]

22 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Sounds like you might need to alter your tiktok algorithm - it seems to only be feeding you one side of the available clickbait and outrage p0rn.

So, if I am concerned about a few incidents, they're incidental outliers.  But when I have seen dozens of such cases all over the country over the course of a couple years, why I'm just a victim of the TikTok algorithms?

So heads you win, tails I lose, right?

BTW, I don't have a TikTok account. 

Does the source of the news change the fact that such events happened?  Does the source of the news change the fact that the boards gave no apologies or rebuttals to the arguments?  Does the source of the news change the fact that the DOJ investigated them as a possible "terrorist threat"?

As I said, I get my news from all over the spectrum.  Sounds like you're getting all your news from that side that these things ever happened.

[Carborendum]

On 3/26/2023 at 5:49 AM, Godless said:

Seems like the system is working like it's supposed to, though in my son's school district the conservative board challengers were badly beaten. 

Yes, I suppose there is a bright side to this that I had overlooked.  So, I should be grateful for at least that much.  And you're right.  In such cases I believe things are working.  But it simply isn't working enough.  Teachers' unions simply have too much money to throw at elections to counter all grass roots efforts to unseat them.  This tells me that it is not simply isolated, but systemic.

Even after some victories for "my side",  what I still find bothersome is that so many of these boards (whether they were voted out or not) never apologized for their behavior.  No one in power has sanctioned them or taken any action at all.  This tells me that, yet again, the divide keeps widening. 

It isn't simply about "what can we get away with" (keeping things secret).  We are seeing a fundamental disagreement about what is right and wrong; what is good for America or not; what is good for our children or not.  That is not a good place to be in.

I've never actually heard your position on such behavior by school boards or if you actually support grade school children being taught that LGBTQ issues being front and center is problematic.  Or what your position is on men in women's sports.

I remember that as early as 9 years old, we were "aware" that there were homosexuals.  We all thought it was weird.  That was not parents or teachers or churches telling us this.  It was just the fact that we knew such things existed and we, ourselves thought it was weird.  No indocrtination required.  Trans was another issue entirely.  We didn't actually understand what that was until Jr. high or high school.  Again, just natural exposure to life.  And trans stuff back then was a whole lot different than it is today.

The point about this is that we were aware that things existed.  But no one indoctrinated us one way or another.  We just naturally had our natural reactions.  And we thought it was weird.  So, "having the idea around" was a natural part of society.  Indoctrinating children to accept this as "normal" is quite another thing.