Local Colorado uber-conservative commentator, John Andrews, apparently doesn't care much for the philosophy articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
In yesterday's Sunday Denver Post, Andrews wrote in a column entitled "Celebrate a mindful Thanksgiving" this paragraph:"I was not born free," insisted Lewis, the Oxford don and Christian apologist. "I was'" [...]
The results of Arvada's city council elections held yesterday confirm that the municipality is firmly stuck back in the 1990s.
I am not surprise one wit by the outcome ... totally predictable.
The "new" city council membership will look almost exactly like it did in 1995 (four of the members). Philosophically it [...]
The results of this year's Arvada, Colorado, city council elections could take our community a giant step backwards into the last century. At a time when we need 21st century ideas and innovative solutions to economic and environmental challenges, voters can decide to put new people and different perspectives on' [...]
The Colorado government schools establishment, as we know, is fully on board with the charter schools fad. As we have noted here before, Gov. Ritter and Lt. Gov. O'Brien are decked-out cheerleaders for Pres. Obama's and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's "Race to the Top" scheme that encourages more charter' [...]
Sadly, President Obama and his corporate/military Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, think that the sole measure of an education is how a child performs on a three week battery of high stakes standardized tests.
Learning and real education encompasses more than time stuck in a preformed-plastic desk ... time to "chill" [...]
Let's be frank, we have a "mainstream" radio talk show host here in Colorado that daily blows the dog whistle for those folks who are angry, bitter, and resentful about an African-American in the White House to hear.
Formerly center-right radio talker Pete Boyles has jumped into the cesspool of' [...]
A word of warning for Colorado voters: the American Taliban are back with their attempt to impose their extremist religious and moral rules on everyone.
The 'personhood' initiative was overwhelmingly defeated in 2008, but the religious radicals who petitioned it onto the ballot then are back for a 2010 redo (first [...]
All right, I'll wade into this controversy manufactured by right-wing subversives over President Obama's planned telecast speech to school kids next week. Because, yes, the nut cases have sufficiently hyped their paranoid hysteria such that I received a robo-call from Pomona High School in Arvada this morning offering all the' [...]
The 'No Child Left Behind' method of accountability/testing/standards took yet another hit -- it just isn't working.
Colorado's CSAP high stakes testing is part of this sterile, dead-end educational "reform."
Since the fifty state, federally mandated testing mania has been fully in place, SAT scores have declined.
As reported in today's Denver Post:Through' [...]
By the way, did you see the news report in this past Friday's Denver Post that relates to us that "Denver high school students have performed poorly on Advanced Placement tests during the past five years"?
We've had our public schools operating under this 'accountability/testing/standards' theory now since Roy Romer was' [...]
In today's Denver Post is yet another story about Colorado school officials touting yet another report admonishing more 'reform' to provide for more "data infrastructure, human capital, struggling schools, standards/accountability."
As I have note before, Governor Ritter, Lt. Governor O'Brien and the Dimocrats in the' [...]
The Denver metro area's FasTracks mass transit plan needs to be re-worked to meet the realities of the 21st century.
The latest analysis that supports this point was contained in yesterday's Denver Post in an essay written by Chuck Plunkett entitled "Prius effect: Energy-efficient cars undercut the appeal of light" [...]
We all want an improving economy. No one wants to have even the shadow of fear that tomorrow will bring bad news.
Not falling prey to 'rosy scenarios' is important, however, if we are to use common sense for realistic planning. Believing, even sincerely, that the "Great Recession" is over because [...]
As readers of my essays on education know, I am in favor of local control of education. It is my deeply held belief that the people closest to our children -- parents, guardians, relatives and neighbors -- ultimately know what is best for them.
Consequently, the notion that "one size [...]
The obsession with flawed and corrupted high stakes testing scores as the total measure of education in Colorado continues.
Today's Denver Post has a report on math scores indicating that the state's educrats and Governor Ritter are stuck on the notion that CSAP and NAEP scores are everything, period, the [...]
This past school year classes started at 7:25 A.M. at Pomona High School in Arvada, Colorado. I hope that changes this fall because an early start time does not help make high performing, learning students.
When you were fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen ... and perhaps for even a few more years [...]
The CSAP high stakes testing in Colorado's public and charter schools has been discredited.
The incidents of stupidity in administering the test, cheating, politicizing and manipulating the testing process appear to be growing.
Now, there is an allegation that a prominent charter school is also cheating' [...]
In the article below, college instructor William Astore discusses the current state of higher education -- but most of what he writes can be applied to public K-12 schooling as well.
I'll amplify a few points.
First, the micromanagement of local schools by the federal and state governments is a prime' [...]
It is an appeal we all hear incessantly: more money for schools. In this morning's Sunday Denver Post the incessant part is echoed again.
Genuine reform of our public schools is not about how much more money can be shoveled into the existing system. Genuine reform is about rethinking the way [...]
Let me put it plainly: the planet Earth cannot afford anymore Americans.
But not only is an ever expanding population of residents of the United States due to immigration unsustainable, the birthrate and our excessive style of resource consumption is killing the planet.
I'll be blunt again: after and only after we' [...]
There is constant talk and discussion in Colorado and the nation about 'education reform' ... about how to improve students' test scores and make the schools more 'accountable'.
Let's be frank, ninety percent of this rhetoric is all about -- MORE MONEY. As if more dollars in and of themselves will [...]
Here is yet another case of school administration STUPIDITY from Penn Hills, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The level of control -- absolute control -- that school administrators seek over students is in direct contradiction of the whole concept of individual liberty that was the basis for the founding of the [...]
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter has betrayed us all ... a 'low-wage' state workforce is apparently his vision for our economic future.
We read this headline in this morning's Denver Post, "Ritter vetoes labor measure."
The veto sends this clear message: screw you middle class working folks.
One of the things keeping Colorado's' [...]
Yet another example of 'big brother' knows best from a Republican in the Colorado legislature.
Privacy? Innocent until proven guilty? Forget it, the state government wants to keep a record of even your DNA, even if you are not guilty of any crime.
Not surprisingly this legislation is sponsored by one of [...]
I simply must voice my utter disgust at KHOW radio talk show host, Peter Boyles, who this morning was blaming the swine flu outbreak in this country on "illegals."
As of this morning, most of the twenty cases reported in the United States have occurred among people who have just recently [...]
The quotation below from Alexis de Tocqueville expresses one of my great concerns about what is going on in our nation -- and my belief that we are not nearly as free as we (or others) would like us to think we are.
It has been my notion that tyranny in [...]
Often, those who argue in favor of "immigration reform" will stubbornly say that more workers does not lead to lower wages for everyone else.
I simply don't understand this point ... because it is illogical.
Nevertheless, more proof below that globalization and 'immigration' are hurting working Americans. Since H-1B visas are' [...]
Yes, another 2009 example of the corruption of the CSAP regimen. So rigid, so inflexible, so inverted ... at a Greeley high school the second part of the math portion of the test was handed out by mistake before the first part to a whole sixteen students!
Automatic ZEROs!
Now, why [...]
This blog entry was printed in the Thursday, April 23, 2009, edition of the Arvada-Wheat Ridge "YourHub.com" ...
It is reported in the Denver Post today that a middle school principal in the Adams 12 district got caught manipulating the CSAP testing procedure.
Big surprise.
The real scandal is that there [...]
Wanted: More taxpayers to service America's $20 trillion national government debt!
I maintain that one of the primary reasons for the drive to 'open' the southern border of the United States and to grant amnesty to illegal aliens in this country is because of the demand by mega-corporations for more low-wage, [...]
Good!
Dem Shift Halts Tuition Bill | Denver Post
The Colorado Senate on Monday narrowly rejected a bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants in-state tuition, after five Democrats joined with Republicans to vote against it. ...... Democratic Sens. Morgan Carroll of Aurora, Jim Isgar of Hesperus, Moe Keller of Wheat [...]
We need to end illegal immigration into Colorado and the United States.
I am raising this point today because of the re-introduction of the so-called 'Dream Act' in the U.S. Congress and because of the so-called 'tuition equity' legislation being considered in the Colorado state assembly.
A display of why I [...]
Below is a newspaper report from Texas about a brave, freedom-loving, student taking a stand against that state's version of CSAP.
What is most outrageous about the case, as reported, is the heavy-handed manner in which the school administration unloads on the conscientious student. Note the arrogant attitude that only 'they' [...]
The second week of non-learning started today -- CSAP testing ... testing ... testing ... continues.
In Colorado Springs yet another group of parents have figured out that boycotting the CSAP is a great way to make a point. More power to those parents! And, those children will be grateful for [...]
I'm somewhat gratified by two opinion pieces in today's Denver Post.
The Post editorial and the column by Tina Griego go part of the way to understanding that CSAP isn't doing what it was originally intended to do ... and furthermore that it has a perverse effect on students, teachers and [...]
CSAP is a joke.
A thanks from me to the teachers and administrators at Goldrick Elementary School in Denver, Colorado, for the demonstration of my point.
The photograph to the right appeared in this morning's Denver Post (Photo by John Leyba, The Denver Post). (Condolences to [...]
It amounts to about two weeks of teaching time taken away by the pointless Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) testing in high school this year.
Last Friday, I delivered a letter to my daughter's high school principal informing him that she would not be participating in the [...]
In a previous post I listed my reasons for opposing the two Jefferson County school district's tax and bonding election measures.
Both issues were indeed defeated. A majority of the voters on November 4 exercised some common sense even if the Jeffco school board did not.
Let [...]
I have officially endorsed Barack Obama for President.
This is a statement of personal support and does not indicate any position taken by the Green Party of Colorado. The letter was sent out to Colorado Greens:
Fellow Coloradoans, who said this?
''We will find the necessary money for those most in need, by taking it from those least in need.''Sounds suspiciously like ... Karl Marx, right? You know, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
The author of the line in question is: [...]
Colorado's Jefferson County School District is asking the taxpayers for more money -- even as the recession deepens. Here is my position on Measures 3A and 3B:
One of the ways we make governmental institutions accountable to us in a democratic republic is to say 'yea' or 'nay' when they come [...]
Today it is the turn of Colorado's U.S. Senators Allard and Salazar to play the bailout Wall Street game. We've heard that Salazar's email is full and his voice messaging box is full ... so call the local office -- this time we actually want him to follow his brother's [...]
UPDATE!
We are gratified that Mark Udall and John Salazar actually voted 'NO' on the Wall Street bailout.
Hmmm ... maybe things are beginning to change in Washington.
How will Colorado's Senators and Representatives vote on the BIG Bush Bailout Plan? How's this for a prediction: the Bush enabler [...]
I document these instances of zero tolerance idiocy from around the country because incidents like this do happen in Colorado ... and because I want to encourage voters and parents and responsible teachers to resist turning good students into criminal suspects.
Our public school system needs major, deep reform -- a [...]
Another story for our collection of paranoid public school administators with apparently too much free time on their hands (or too much power gone to their heads).
Link: "href="http://cbs2chicago.com/northwestindianabureau/bag.ban.school.2.813711.html">Indiana High School's Purse Ban Rankles Students | cbs2chicago.com
CEDAR LAKE, Ind. (CBS) ― An Indiana high school is making a bold move [...]
Colorado is reported by public opinion polling to be a swing state in the upcoming presidential election. Our nine electoral votes could be important in deciding who our president is for the next four years. In Colorado, energy and the environment are important issues, the tone set by who is [...]
This is a two part video message from my fellow Colorado Green Party co-chair, Claire Ryder.
The videos are mostly about internal Green Party politics as they relate to next week's protest during the Democratic National convention in Denver, but they also relate to my previous post announcing that I [...]
I am the co-chair of the Green Party of Colorado, but I am not supporting Cynthia McKinney for President.
Colorado Green Party candidates this year are exceptional and I support them whole heartily: Bob Kinsey for U.S. Senate; Art Goodtimes for San Miguel County Commissioner; Scott Zulauf for Jefferson County Commissioner; [...]
UPDATE!
Link: cbs4denver.com - Denver Voters Pass Initiative 100, Suit Possible
" href="http://cbs4denver.com/politics/denver.illegal.immigrants.2.793913.html">Denver Voters Pass Initiative 100, Suit Possible | CBS4Denver.com
I don't want [...]
Approval of this Congress, controlled by the Dimocrats, stands at an historic low: NINE PERCENT.
Why?
It is pretty clear ... because Colorado's Ken Salazar and Mark Udall and Ed Perlmutter and John Salazar are Bush-enablers. You can also thank the Dimocrat 'leadership' of Reid, Pelosi and Hoyer for gutting the Fourth [...]
