Stupid Educrat Tricks

This was from the Capital today, and it ties into a lot of problems with Anne Arundel County schools:

As the dollar falls and America is challenged by the growing economic power of foreign countries like India and China, some county school board members are prepared to valiantly defend our nation against threats to our civic pride.

Like the school system's new strategic plan.

A line in the plan, which the school board approved Wednesday, said county schools should prepare students to be "productive young citizens of the world."

An attack on allegiance to our nation!

Board member Vic Bernson, a veteran and White House attorney, leapt to America's defense.

"I didn't sign up to be a citizen of the world, I signed up to be a citizen of the United States," Mr. Bernson said. "It is not just semantics - names are very important."

But other board members allied themselves with the rest of the planet.

"We live in a global economy, we're in a world without borders," said board member Eugene Peterson. "That's what we're trying to say."

Another board member, Michael Leahy, countered, "There are a set of ideals that this country was founded on. To say we all happen to exist on the same planet does a disservice to those ideals," he said.

The battle - ahem, discussion - went on for about 15 minutes.

In the end the board voted 6 to 2 with Mr. Bernson and student board member Sage Snider dissenting, to change the line. Now county students will become "productive young citizens of the United States as it resides in an increasingly global community."

There are a ton of problems with the above:

• Are the majority of the members of the Board of Education so politically correct that they think that being a citizen of the world is more important than learning the basics such as reading, writing, math, science, history, etc? I mean seriously, why is such an ill-conceived line in the strategic plan anyway? Shouldn't we be just producing productive citizens and call it a job. If the schools are doing what they are supposed to be doing, shouldn't that take care of itself?
  
  
• If such silliness is in one line of the strategic plan, don't you wonder what else is in the Strategic Plan that has not hit the papers? The approved document is not on-line yet, but the 11/26 version that was introduced and discussed at the meeting is. It's 174 pages long, so I am not going to read it at this second, but it's there for your perusal. Did you know that the values of the Anne Arundel County Public Schools are the following?:
• Collaboration
• Results Orientation
• Shared Ownership of Every Student’s Success
• Continuous Learning
• High Expectations
• Supportive Relationships
• Equity and Cultural Proficiency
• Innovation and Creativity
  
  
• Incidentally, why was the public only notified via the web about the previous availability and comment period on the Strategic Plan

The biggest problem with the boondoggle over this language regarding "World Citizen" is the fact that these jokers cannot be replaced through truly public participation. No, the only way these folks will be replaced is through appointment by the O'Malley/Leopold Politically Connected Wunderkids that make up the newfangled School Board Nominating Commission.

O'Malley, and particularly John Leopold, don't want you to have the necessary input to make sure that members of the School Board are elected don't focus on crap like this. Leopold doesn't want you to have the chance to support candidates who care more about education than political correctness. It's more important for O'Malley and Leopold to get their cronies on the Board than it is to actually educate students. And that continues and will continue to be a sad state of affairs for students, teachers, parents, and taxpayers in Anne Arundel County.