Clark Howard calls out "Monopoly Public School System"

Since I first heard the Clark Howard show years ago, I really liked it. He has a great sense of humor, great advice, and overall a great show. Also, he is from Atlanta, a place that I fondly called "home" awhile back, and is a champion of "Habitat for Humanity," which I believe is an excellent charity, and I have enjoyed the times I have helped them. So, it seems we have a personal connection there.

Typically, Clark stays politically non-partisan. It is a very pragmatic stance - focus on what you can control (your finances) and not what you can not control (government). But, this week he took a real stab at a story involving a teacher calling in police, and having them remove a student from the classroom for not following the teachers dictates.

I really recommend Clark's show. I also really agree with the point he made here. Teachers should not be in the business of ordering the arrest of students. Yet one more reason to homeschool or put your children in private school. Yet another example of JRA - Javert Run Amok.

Very Interesting Take on Abuse at School

Kurt Schulzke really picks up the "story behind the story" on this one. Sex abuse in the public school system is a serious problem. How often does it happen? Is there a better way that is less prone to abuse?

My children are in public schools right now. The schools have a policy of trying to keep parents away from the schools. I had to be fingerprinted during normal working hours to be a volunteer! It made me wonder if it was worth it. Certainly, there needs to more parental oversight of public schools. Like the mother in the article, am I being intellectually dishonest if I say "I’m very protective about my children,” since my children are in public school? Of course, my wife would say I'm not being protective when I allowed and encouraged them to wrestle this year. ;)

Victory in Home Schooling Rights

Looks like California has come to it's senses regarding parental rights in homeschooling. The LA Times reports:

Governator Schwarzenegger:

This is a victory for California's students, parents and education community. This decision confirms the right every California child has to a quality education and the right parents have to decide what is best for their children. I hope the ruling settles this matter for parents and home-schooled children once and for all in California, but assure them that we, as elected officials, will continue to defend parents' rights.

Phillip Long:

Educating your children in your own home preexisted these buffoons that sit on the 2nd Circuit. It preexisted this state. It preexisted us. Parents have been teaching their own children since the beginning.

Some Web highlights

I am only linking a few articles that I feel are either important or rare. You can get most of the mainline stories from newspapers or other blogs.

Follow-up failure in Texas from Journalism.org notes that the original raid recieved much more media attention than the Texas Supreme Court forcing the children's release.

The drop-off in coverage from the initial raid to the Supreme Court decision occurred across all media sectors. Online and network news saw the greatest decline in coverage.

Plural Marriage is Among Consenting Adults by James A. Marples in the Albert Lea Tribune (Minnisota and Northern Iowa) as a Letter-to-the-editor

If all those in the relationship were consenting adults and no abuse, incest or coercion takes place, and if all the children are happy and healthy, I say: Let those people live quietly in peace. It was good enough in Old Testament days of the Holy Bible. And that scriptural precedent should be the legal foundation or precedent for revisions in America law today.

Monogamous Deception Letter to the Editor by Thomas McCabe in the Cape Verde (AZ) Bugle

The lower courts have spoken; the Supreme Court of Texas has spoken. Yet the quasi-dictatorial government agency, the Texas Child Protective Services, defies the courts to impose 'their' own brand of 'law.' On March 29, Texas State Police armed with assault rifles, attacked, without cause, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and forcibly removed 416 children. What is considered kidnapping in Texas? Doesn't the Bill of Rights apply to all citizens?

CPS Actions Damaged Children Editorial by Johana Scot and Richard Wexler in the San Angelo Standard-Times.

Instead, CPS opted for the mass amputation of the mothers from their children. They were taken from the foggy and distant danger they faced and thrown into the clear and present danger of foster care. ... Instead, CPS opted for the mass amputation of the mothers from their children. They were taken from the foggy and distant danger they faced and thrown into the clear and present danger of foster care.

Home Schoolers Threaten our Cultural Comfort by Sonny Scott in the Northeast Mississipi Daily Journal.

Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids, and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in California. ... Now the kid is raising hell again, demanding the latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work … and there goes that modest young woman in the home-made dress with her four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow. Wouldn’t you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug face?

You can now purchase FLDS clothing! Provide modest and functional clothing for your children while helping the famalies recovery from the raid.