Opting Out - At Least In One Small Way...

First day of school for son (8, 3rd grade), yesterday...

He didn't want to go... nothing's changed over summer and we had the usual tears and pleading and having to be pried from me at the classroom door...

Horrified to find the flag flying in the classroom, with a copy of the Pledge of Allegiance pinned underneath it... 

My son has four nationalities and I don't want him brainwashed to be loyal to any one country, any one philosophy, any one culture, any one religion, any one ethnic or social group...

He's a citizen of the world, and I've already written a post about my beliefs around flags, borders, anthems and patriotism:

A World Without Flags, Borders and Anthems

And then, a notice came home in the afternoon, saying that the first 10 days of school would be taken up with testing, testing and more testing...

And son had a temper tantrum last night, which in the end, was the releasing of pent-up tension and unhappiness about his day at school, where all of his security references/ties have been taken away from him... 

He said his day had no "roses", just all "thorns" and that after the initial greeting 'circle up' and warm-up game, it was all boring...

What more information do I need to legitimise my almost-made decision to take him out of school and "unschool" him?

This morning I sent this letter to the school/district, son is staying home and I need to finally reconcile my ambivalence about "formal" education...

Sent 13 September 2011, Shoreline School District, Washington

Dear Shereen, Trinh and Superintendent Walker...

I, Sahila ChangeBringer, hereby exercise my parental rights under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to withdraw my son "C" from any and all forms of standardised testing conducted at Room Nine and within the Shoreline School District.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that parents posses the “fundamental right” to “direct the upbringing and education of their children.” Furthermore, the Court declared that “the child is not the mere creature of the State: those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right coupled with the high duty to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” (Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35) The Supreme Court criticized a state legislature for trying to interfere “with the power of parents to control the education of their own.” (Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 402.) In Meyer, the Supreme Court held that the right of parents to raise their children free from unreasonable state interferences is one of the unwritten "liberties" protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (262 U.S. 399).

In recognition of both the right and responsibility of parents to control their children’s education, the Court has stated:

“It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for the obligations the State can neither supply nor hinder.” (Prince v.Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158)

C is not permitted to take the test during mandated testing days nor during designated make-up sessions.

Additionally, I am requesting that the school make accommodations for meaningful alternative activities or assignments that will continue to promote his academic and intellectual growth.

C will not be in attendance if academically viable alternatives are not available.

Furthermore, I must be guaranteed in writing that whatever option is taken, either alternative assignments or absence, my child will not face any negative consequences to, for example, course grades, social or behavioral evaluations, workload, promotion, or future classroom assignments.

Furthermore, I ask that no record of this testing be part of C's permanent file, as I do not wish him to participate in standardised achievement testing for promotion, graduation, or school/state report cards.

Strict adherence to state and Federal high-stakes standardised testing, including the extensive classroom preparation that occurs prior to test administration, prevents my student from receiving a well-rounded and engaging educational experience.

Additionally, it:

•Is not scientifically-based and fails to follow the U.S. Government’s own data on learning

•Fosters test driven education that is not meeting the individual/intellectual needs of students

•Presents a racial and economic bias that is beneficial to white middle/upper class students and detrimental to second language students, impoverished students, and students of colour

•Violates the United States Constitution’s ESEA Fiscal Fairness Act

•Supports complicity of corporate interests rather than democracy based on public concerns

•Fosters coercion over cooperation with regards to federal funding for public education

•Promotes a culture of lying, cheating, and exploitation within the school community

•Has used the achievement gap to foster a “de facto” segregation that has resulted in separate and unequal education for minorities

I do apologize in advance for the inconvenience or scrutiny that this decision may cause the administration, the school, and staff.

Sincerely,

Sahila ChangeBringer

parent...

Not In Our Name: The Pledge of Resistance

I wanted to post this this morning, to reflect how I feel about the Seattle School Board rubber stamping our education deformist Superintendent's move to bring Teach for America recruits to our schools, especially to the most vulnerable students in our city.

This is being done despite the fact we have no shortage of highly-qualified teachers in the city, all eager for work, the District has to pay $4,000/year for each of the two years the TFA recruit signs on for, plus salary and benefits, this was a sole source contract (in contravention of regulations), there was no public engagement, the contract was written by and protects TFA and not the District, student privacy is endangered, there are no guarantees and the District assumes all liability while TFA shoulders none...

And this is all being done in the name of "our children".... and that is complete BS... its being done in the name of the privatising education deformers, the Billionaire Boys' Club, the oligarchy...

Six more months and we shall have charter schools in our city and the deform agenda will have been completely implemented...

See here for more: 

http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/seattle-school-board-rubber-stamps-yet-another-item-on-its-broad-superintendents-ed-reform-agenda/

http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/search?q=TFA

Despicable & Grotesque Brainwashing of Our Most Precious Treasure & Resource: War Games Lure Recruits For 'Real Thing'

"A controversial Army Experience Center in a northeast Philadelphia shopping mall will soon close its doors after a two-year pilot program. With regard to its military outreach efforts, the multimillion-dollar facility has declared "mission accomplished," but opponents question the Army's version of reality...

...At the center, teenage boys sit in a row of Army-green recliners facing flat-screen monitors. They square off in video war games like the popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Once visitors register and prove they're 13 years or older, they're given free access to the facility's array of war-themed games...

...John Gallato, 18, and three of his 15-year-old friends sit atop the Army vehicle eagerly waiting for their mission to begin. With a lifelike machine gun in hand, Gallato says experiences like this will help prepare him for the future.

"I'm going to be killing people," he says. "I'm actually joining the Marines and will be doing this in real life."

When they get the green light, the four teens begin maneuvering through virtual war zones and shooting at targets while dodging bullets themselves.

These simulated war experiences have met with strong opposition. Combat veteran Staff Sgt. Jesse Hamilton says the Army has sanitized the horrors of combat.

"The heat, people screaming, blood, flies, horrible smells, smoke in your eyes stinging, sand — the list goes on and on — and they've taken all of that out," he says. "What they've effectively left is what they consider to be the 'fun' part."

Demonstrators have voiced opposition to the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia throughout the two years the pilot program has been operating.

Kathy Leary, of the BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, says war is not a game. "We've heard kids come out of the Army Experience Center saying, 'They're really showing me what war is really like' — and obviously that's not what war is really like. There's no reset button in war." 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128875936&sc=fb&cc=fp

As a former military wife of 18 years and the mother of a son currently serving in the New Zealand Army who spent six months in Afghanistan recently, I think I have the right to say this completely sucks... 

We need to be moving towards educating for peace, not brainwashing our young people to prepare them to go and kill in any country's name...

A World Without Flags, Borders and Anthems

It's been in my thinking for a long time now (perhaps because I've been an immigrant all of my life, so far living in five countries), how ridiculous and anachronistic it is that we have borders.

Where's the logic and the sanity and the compassion in a world that is divided up into regions by invisible lines in the sand and ocean?

Where one's lot in life is basically decreed by a geographical accident of birth?

Where, if you're born one foot on this side of that invisible line you have a certain kind of life, and if you're born one foot on the other side of that line you have another kind of life?

And where some people get to control the majority of the resources on the planet and others get to do without?

Where's the equity and compassion in all of that?

And borders and flags and anthems and patriotism all lead us to separate ourselves from the 'others' and give us cause to make the other an enemy and to criticise and to disparage and to exploit and to fight and to exterminate.

Where's the compassion in all of that?

Isn't it time we did away with this ridiculously outdated notion of countries and national interests?

We're living in an interconnected web.   What we do, how we live here in the web affects someone, something elsewhere in the web.   Because we're living in a closed system, when we take more than we need on a moment by moment basis, when we claim our 'rights' to a certain piece of land or a body of water, to a certain lifestyle and degree of comfort, someone, somewhere else has to pay the price, do without.

Where's the compassion in that?

Who thinks about that when they're shopping at Walmart or Costco?

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
...Living life in peace 

~John Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980), English musician and singer-songwriter, political activist...