Being Human

So the College Board is using the alleged curricular pressure as a pretext to implement a curriculum that is completely at odds with the traditional APUSH course – which was designed to provide students with a balanced survey of the American experience while also preparing them for college-level courses in American history. “Balance” has disappeared. Students will learn a great deal about American oppressors and exploiters but little about the dreamers, innovators, and heroes who built our country.

The redesigned Framework is best described as a curricular coup.

Petitioners, organized by the National Associations of State Boards of Education (NASBE), recently filed a lawsuit arguing that the repeal of Common Core is unconstitutional under Oklahoma state law. The plaintiffs take issue with a provision in House Bill 3399 allowing the state legislature to be involved in drafting new standards to replace Common Core….

• 10-year-old girl raped in OKC elementary school
• Student accused of threats at Mustang school
• Police investigate sexual assault claim at Sand Springs school
• Four-year-old wanders from OKC school, found in city street
• Kellyville teacher arrested for sex with student
• Yukon settles lawsuit over bullying ... by teachers
• Okla. high school coach arrested on molestation complaint
• Self-interest of grown-ups again trumps concern for the children
• Sex abuse of students by school personnel addressed in new Title IX guidance
• Two former Okla. school bus drivers charged in alleged sexual contact with young girls
• Former Oklahoma high school coach guilty of rape
• Tulsa Public Schools bus nearly hit by train
• Tulsa sixth-grade teacher arrested for lewd molestation
• Two Oklahoma inquiries focus on possible sexual relationships between teachers and students
• Coweta Public Schools bus driver arrested for lewd molestation

Activists in Northern California, near the border with Oregon, are pushing to secede from the Golden State. [Video]

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed Friday a controversial bill that many critics of the Common Core standards said would bind the state further both to the nationalized standards and the PARCC tests aligned to them. … The governor added that the measure “would significantly impair parents’ ability to have clear information about the performance of their child’s school and teachers’ ability to have meaningful feedback.”

'We hate math' say 4 in 10 — a majority of Americans. [Um... seriously? See graphic at link.]

Cass Sunstein, Obama’s former regulatory “czar” and one of the smartest and most devious thinkers on the left… reports that recent curricular reforms in China, explicitly designed to transform students’ political views, have mostly worked. … The crucial finding from the study is that the new curriculum greatly affected students’ thinking. They became more likely to count the Chinese political system as democratic. They displayed a higher level of trust in public officials. They were more skeptical of free markets, and more likely to reject the view that a market economy is preferable to any other economic system….

Riverside Twp, NJ– Two 12-year-olds… allegedly trying to sell prescription sleep pills for $10 a piece to classmates at… Middle School… boys… confessed to consuming them…

[Plaintiffs] attest that three Spanish teachers and a guidance counselor at the high school indoctrinated their daughters into a cult that "celebrates death,"

Chances are your parents were selfish and didn’t raise you correctly. Like, at least one-third of the people reading this have no idea how to fold a T-shirt. What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you just not show up to that day of life? But it’s OK. We will show you the way.

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." -GK Chesterson

…in 1976… Moraitis had lung cancer.… nine months to live. He was in his mid-60s. …decided… to return to Ikaria, where he could be buried with his ancestors in a cemetery shaded by oak trees that overlooked the Aegean Sea. … Today, three and a half decades later, he’s 97 years old… says he’s 102 — and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move home to Ikaria. …

In spite of my efforts, the government has grown exponentially, taxes remain excessive, and the prolific increase of incomprehensible regulations continues. Wars are constant and pursued without congressional declaration, deficits rise to the sky, poverty is rampant and dependency on the federal government is now worse than any time in our history.
 All this with minimal concerns for the deficits and unfunded liabilities that common sense tells us cannot go on much longer. …
 [I]n the early part of the 20th century, our politicians promoted the notion that the tax and monetary systems had to change if we were to involve ourselves in excessive domestic and military spending. That is why Congress gave us the Federal Reserve and the income tax.
 The majority of Americans and many government officials agreed that sacrificing some liberty was necessary to carry out what some claimed to be 'progressive' ideas.
 "If it's not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties. Prosperity for a large middle class though will become an abstract dream. …
 "The Internet will provide the alternative to the government/media complex that controls the news and most political propaganda. This is why it's essential that the Internet remains free of government regulation. -Ron Paul

Oklahoma's two newest Republican congressmen say they're optimistic they will be able to work with a Democratic president and Senate to break the partisan gridlock in Washington. [Work with them for what?]