2010 California Election Forum

New school song celebrates nontraditional holiday

The 6th graders at Hidden Trail Elementary in Chino Hills were given six songs to sing this school year: Thanksgiving, The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, The Apple Song, Turkey in the Straw and Over the River—all good and innocent. But recently added is this song: Ramadan.

Here's how it goes:

Do not eat or drink,
Until the sun goes down.
When you bow and pray,
Your face must
Touch the ground.

Going to the mosque:
It's where the family prays,
Or in an open yard;
They pray five times a day.

***

It's all in the month of
Ramadan, Ramadan,
Ramadan.
It's all in the month of
Ramadan, Ramadan,
Ramadan.

***

Fasting is the way,
And it takes discipline.
Sunrise to sunset,
The spirit glows within.

Twenty-nine sacred days
When everyone takes a part.
It's very spiritual,
And it will fill the heart.

What do you think? Should America's 6th graders be taught to sing this song? Email me at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Throughout America, a saddening trend has grown to ban Christmas carols and concerts in our public schools during the Christmas—excuse me—"holiday season."

The "official reason" is that a Christmas song violates the "separation of church and state."

But this is false. No court should find it a problem. The Supreme Court has ruled that if there is no danger of a government-established religion, it's not a constitutional issue.

In California, we even have specific statues that allow teachers to use or reference religious material when it's educationally appropriate.

One of the questions I asked the school board candidates running for office is whether or not they support charter schools.

Most of those we endorsed in ElectionForum.org do support Charter schools, because they've been helping the kids and the taxpayers.

Here are the latest statistics on this boom to education:

The number of charter schools has increased by 8% since last year, according to a new report by the Center for Education Reform.

For the 2007-08 school year, 347 new charter schools opened; 4,147 charter schools now serve 1.2 million students across the country.

The report found that 560 charter schools have closed since 1992.

Click the button below to see a video of Miss Teen South Carolina as she attempts to explain why 20% of Americans can't find the United States on a map.

Public school systems in Lexington, Massachusetts, have been teaching "diversity training" despite the protests of parents. When the case went to court, lawyers for the public schools argued:

1. Public schools must teach positive attitudes regarding homosexuality.
2. Parents have no right to object.

The court case is the result of parents trying to stop forced teaching of homosexuality in schools. Parents were not informed, or allowed to opt out their children.

For example, a fairy tale, “King and King,” was read to one parent’s 7-year-old son as part of a class on weddings. In the story, a prince turns away one beautiful princess after another and eventually falls in love with another prince. The princes marry, kiss and live happily ever after.

Bottom line: The school district is saying if you send your kids to public school "diversity training" (i.e., political advocacy/indoctrination) must be taught and parents give up their right to morally object.

Back in 2000, voters approved Proposition 39, which dropped the requirement that 2/3 of the local electorate must approve bonds for school construction and repair. Proposition 39 would lower the approval requirement to 55% of the votes.

The results are predictable—it's now too ridiculously easy to pass the bond measures, which means a greater financial burden on taxpayers.

From 2001–2005, an incredible 86% of bonds passed under Proposition 39. This is in contrast to 1986–2005 when only 55% of bonds passed.

Bonds can be filled with waste and unnecessary items. And the reality is, they are the most expensive way to finance a project since the interest, lawyers and bond people wind up doubling the actual costs of any project.

For every $1 spent on education, about $2 from the taxpayer is needed. It's wasteful!

I love history; my wife doesn’t. But we both appreciate the importance of American history and its impact on political thought. Unfortunately, American history is not being taught to students.

Two of the biggest problems are:

• Liberal teachers who teach anti-American hatred and liberal ideology.
• Multicultural textbooks that water down American history and go overboard in bringing up obscure personalities and events just to show diversity. They leave out important events, thoughts and lectures. And they go out of their way to be critical of America's past.

Now, the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy has helped produce a survey called The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education’s Failure to Teach America’s History and Institutions.

Last year, they surveyed more than 14,000 randomly selected college freshman and seniors at 50 colleges and universities.

Here are a couple of surprising results:

• Seniors scored just 1.5% higher on average than freshman on American history and the economy.
• If the survey were a test, seniors would fail with an average score of 53.2%, or an F.
• College seniors at Brown, Georgetown and Yale knew less than freshman about history, government, foreign affairs and the economy.

The complete report can be seen at: www.americancivicliteracy.org.

In the past we’ve discussed the unreasonable conflict of interest regarding teachers unions supporting and donating money to the candidates and elected officials who give union members raises and benefits.

Here is a letter from a school board candidate and her thoughts: "I also ran for school board in Vista, CA, and lost by less than 1%, about 300 votes. I am a member of the CTA teachers union and my dues were used against me to pay for my opponent's campaign. The VTA [Vista Teachers Association] union made my life rough. Someone poisoned my dog and called my husband with kidnapping threats if I did not drop out. The last threat came to my daughter's school.

“The teachers union did their internal polls and found that I just may win this election and upset their 14-year control of the board, so they did their best at a last-minute smear campaign, which cost them lots of money (my dues). I have also had three flat tires in the last month due to brads in the tires causing a slow leak.

“My platform was to teach kids to speak, read and write in English, starting with kindergarten.”

I’ve talked about how unfair it was for teachers unions to finance and campaign for board of education candidates who set their benefits and salaries. Here is a report from Steve Hemingway, who ran for school board. (I hope he runs again.)

"The union's primary issues are increasing membership and the salary/benefits of members. Only secondarily do they advocate the professionalism of its members or the education of children. In 2005, they chose three candidates who would support their goals. The union gave over $5,000 per candidate, which enabled them to send mailers. This was a huge benefit that made the difference for these ‘go-along’ candidates.

"This practice is not new. The other two candidates on the unified school district board were also union-picked. This results in homogeneity of thought that is often out-of-step with parents and citizens. There is no objectivity or independent thinking. No one advocates for quality of education for children except as an unintended side effect of increasing salaries and benefits for the union membership.

"If there was a way to block funding of candidates by teachers unions, it would help restore independence, responsibility and accountability to the electorate. It would help put candidates on a level playing field."

High school and college students often must violate their own political or religious beliefs to pass a class by a liberal teacher.

But at Missouri State University, this denial of a “marketplace of ideas” has been taken to an even more abusive level.

A suit has been filed by the Alliance Defense Fund that will hopefully prevent Missouri State University and other colleges from practicing blatant religious discrimination.

One social work student, Emily Brooker, was assigned a project promoting homosexual foster homes and adoptions. Part of the requirement was to write a letter to the Missouri legislature supporting homosexual adoption. She refused to do the assignment because of her religious beliefs.

She was forced to go to an official school grievance hearing, accused of violating three of the standards of “Essential Functioning in Social Work Education.” The three categories were diversity, interpersonal skills and professional behavior.

During the hearing, university staff asked such questions as, “Do you think I’m a sinner?” and “Do you think gays and lesbians are sinners?”

The sad fact is that all across America colleges are requiring students to agree to liberal positions to pass classes and achieve such goals as a social work degree.

This behavior is a clear violation of First Amendment rights. Students attend college to achieve a higher education, not to be harassed about their religious beliefs or personal values.

Let me know what you think. Email me at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .