A Tale of the Last Hope for Local Control of Education

Candidates for the position for Chairman of the School Board included a doctor, the Establishment candidate, a good friend of the political power in the town and two conservatives. Of course, Sharman Ramsey was labeled a trouble maker from the beginning. She obviously hated public education (though she had graduated from Dothan High School having attended public schools throughout her education) and had an agenda, having made proposals to bring the archaic Phonics Method back to the schools. And she had gathered a group to run on a BACK TO BASICS agenda because not doing so would have made all efforts futile since the resistance would have been unsurmountable with everyone else on the board determined to "be supportive." 
The word (because a disinformation process got started at the Central Office) was they hated public education and wanted to deny the system the money they wanted for all the Progressive "innovations" the administrators had up their sleeves. Things like Whole Language, The Four Period Day, Conflict Resolution! All those wonderfully innovative things the College of Education over at FSU were promoting through Goals 2000. Things supported whole heartedly by the Chamber of Commerce because many of their members wives were members of the Alabama Education Association that supported anything that brought job security and more benefits and they were graduates of Dr. Patti Fritchie's and Dr. Mary Jo Pollman's reading instruction and therefore soldiers for the Progressive/Whole Language agenda. (Dr. Pollman walked the TSUD halls with the Whole Language Catalog tucked under her arm like a talisman.)

That Back To Basics group (the Flat Earthers as they were called) set out their agenda to take the school system back to the dark ages.  And PHONICS WAS THEIR CENTRAL ISSUE. Of course the accusations were that Ramsey was out to profit front her efforts. They channeled their own greed, because Ramsey's efforts were truly altruistic. Ramsey even refused to take donations when running for office because she did not want to owe anything to anyone. (That was REALLY stupid. No one would do something like that!)

While no one had heard any education related comments from the doctor running for Superintendent other than he had a "heart" for education and would listen to the experts, he had the administration working hard, handing out goodies at the football games with the financial backing of the mayor of the city and another doctor, tight with Governor Siegelman and the Southern Poverty Law Center. 
We know how into education the Southern Poverty Law Center is. Why they even published the Teaching Tolerance Curriculum with all of its New Age techniques to empower students -- to read better? Or perhaps turn classrooms into therapeutic labs for attitude adjustment and opening one to the power of the occult. They would make money off the program. No research done on the program could be produced. (Who else besides those silly people who requested access to the curriculum would even care and if you stonewall long enough you could make them look foolish, mock them, isolate them. Alinsky methods.)
Those with the Back to Basics Agenda must be racist. Or so they were labeled. Anyone who did not support everything the AEA and FSU, the Central Office and their Agenda proposed must be racist. A member of the Ku Klux Klan at the very least!
Racism pervaded Ramsey's comments "What is the common denominator here? Eighty-five percent of the juveniles before the courts are functionally illiterate. Eighty five percent of prisoners in jail are functionally illiterate. Fifty percent of 17 year old black males are functionally illiterate.

Why pointing out that the current system of reading instruction was failing those most vulnerable made her a violent racist! Of course! That's logical.

Where was her heart? RETARDING AMERICA THE IMPRISONMENT OF POTENTIAL
https://sharmanbursonramsey.blogspot.com/2014/12/retarding-america-imprisonment-of.html


And she dared point out that some of the lowest scores across the state of Alabama were in the towns with universities and colleges of education. Could it be that using those students as guinea pigs for their "innovations" could have helped create the situation, dared the graduate of two colleges of education within the state, the University of Alabama and Troy University Dothan?

So what did they propose? Citing the appalling statistics that "over 30 percent of 9th graders drop out of school before the 12th grade they dared to make some suggestions.

1. A CITIZEN REVIEW COMMITTEE
Parents and citizens should review all books, movies computer software and group administered tests other than teacher administered tests.
2. A RETURN TO CLASSES IN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY AND THE ELIMINATION OF MULTICULTURALISM
3. LIMIT FIELD TRIPS
Reducing the costs to the students and adding more time for instruction
4. ADMINISTER NATIONALLY NORMED STANDARDIZED TESTS (LIKE THE SAT) with the results broken down by school and by class in order to insure educated parental choice for schools and teachers by parents and assure teacher accountability
5. PARENT SUPPORT GROUPS TO MAN AND RUN FUNDRAISERS FOR THE SCHOOL
Preferably of a kind that develops a sense of community and family
6. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS SHOULD OFFER A SYSTEMATIC INTENSIVE DIRECT AND EARLY PHONICS PROGRAM option for ALL CHILDREN
7. STRUCTURED TRADITIONAL CLASSROOMS
8. CONTENT BASED CURRICULUM
9. DRILL AND REPETITION to reinforce learning and develop memory skills
10. CONTENT BASED CURRICULUM
10. SEMESTER EXAMS
11. DIRECT INSTRUCTION
12. 9 WEEK TESTS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS
13. FOREIGN LANGUAGE
14. TYPING
15. LATIN OPTION
16. SEVEN PERIOD DAY (NO BLOCK SCHEDULING)
17. A PUBLISHED SCHOOL BOARD AGENDA
18. PARENTAL SCHOOL BOARDS FOR INDIVIDUAL SCHOOLS, which along with the principal, determine dress code and discipline code for individual schools.

They cited facts.



RADICAL. WASN'T IT?

Their plan was supported by the research provided by Dr. Patrick Groff. Please notice Number 24 below. This was the 90s.

Whole Language has a political agenda; to aid in the radical change, to the Left, of the political structure of our nation. 

What?



Dr. Groff was quite astute. Prescient. Observant.

Those who won this election and those afterward became mere pawns. Endorsing item after item, a checklist of radical policies that began with paying someone to rewrite the bylaws of the Board shifting from requiring SEQUENTIAL learning to THEMATIC. This got passed without the public having an inkling of the earthquake in education the Goals 2000 written for us by David Hornbeck of the National Center for Education and the Economy and author of Human Capital would bring.

From then on signs popped up Support Our Schools year after year with fundraisers to enhance the education of our children. But that only meant buying fax machines, or microwaves, or encouraging Earth Day Activities. Parents leave education to the educators. And that means those in control of the schools and their clones. Not ever those who might challenge ANYTHING!

But those folks that lost the election hadn't given up affecting a real difference in the lives of Dothan students. They actually proposed a Right to Read Act. I can only imagine the hilarity at the Central Office.



Foolish people. What matter they had research on their side. Why they even were so brazen as to suppose others shared their sincere concern about the high rates of illiteracy and the low scores of Reading and Math. 
But the doctor's wife who was so tight with Siegelman, actually turned her back on the foolish woman who dared to bring her the research that could make a REAL DIFFERENCE in enabling those minorities they claimed to champion to be able to read. Her act of arrogance and disrespect has never been forgotten. Nor the time that Seigelman's wife did pretty much the same thing. With people who have power there is no humility, I have found. Money goes to some folks head. 
Then that silly woman actually wrote an article that was published in the Montgomery Advertiser pointing out that the State Director of Instruction, Dr. Katherine Mitchell, had written her dissertation on Whole Language (as she proudly proclaimed at an Education meeting at the Capitol. Chip Bailey was in office then and sat on the Education Committee.)
That caused that poor woman's heart to clench up almost as much as Dean Kunkel's admission at the Delphi technique meeting the Chamber of Commerce held where he admitted there was no research to support it, just "current wisdom."
But that is what happens when you step out against the powerful Establishment. The Swamp creatures are everywhere!




And you would think that would be it. That woman's children grew up. They scored high on the tests because she had gotten her own children to high ground to go back and fight for the rest. The ABEKA curriculum was successful for them.

She and her friends did not give up fighting for the children. She and others paid to bring educators from schools with methods that worked, like John Winston...
https://sharmanbursonramsey.blogspot.com/2017/12/spalding-writing-road-to-reading-and.html

When her children graduated, though she find herself crying in her garden over the failure of the schools and the lost children in it, she did not realize how bad it had really gotten until her granddaughter had problems with Common Core Math. And once again that old warhorse got called to battle.

Of course, I am that old nag. Not as strong as before. Not as mobile. (A chair lift in our home is a blessing. But every bit as concerned now as I was thirty years ago because Dr. Groff's concerns have proven valid. And now it is legislatively entrenched within our schools. Our children AND our nation are at risk!)

Unless there is revolution with parents DEMANDING a REAL EDUCATION for their children and freedom from this oppressive education system I think we are headed for a Brave New World in truth and not fiction.

Let us pray for OUR CHAMPION. Because he is truly up against a determined and powerful enemy.

I have a website (southern-style.com) and this blog. So, I am merely as aggravating as one of those black flies of summer and there is really no concern by the powers that be in Dothan or in Panama City that anything I write will bring any real challenge to their goals.

But, I promise until God calls his champion to defend the defenseless, I will work here on the sidelines with the Panhandle Eagle Forum and pray for our children, our schools and our country.

You are welcome to join me.

Alabamians you are in great risk. Your Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Barbara Cooper, is guiding your children's education now. You truly need to find out her belief system. 



DEMONIC ROOTS TO COMMON CORE? VISIT YOUR CHILD'S THERAPEUTIC CLASSROOM.
https://sharmanbursonramsey.blogspot.com/2017/12/demonic-roots-to-common-core-visit-your.html

THE GENEALOGY OF COMMON CORE: BILL GATES/UNESCO/ROBERT MULLER//ALICE BAILEY/LUCIS TRUST https://sharmanbursonramsey.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-genealogy-of-common-core-bill-gates_5.html

THE CHICAGO CONNECTION TO COMMON COREhttps://sharmanbursonramsey.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-chicago-connection-to-common-core.html

TEACHERS AS LIBERATORS PRODUCE STUDENTS AS REVOLUTIONARIES: Whole Language Live On!
https://sharmanbursonramsey.blogspot.com/2017/02/teachers-as-liberators-produce-students.html

Revolutionary Pedagogy: Or, so you thought reading, writing and calculating were why you sent your child to school?https://sharmanbursonramsey.blogspot.com/2014/06/revolutionary-pedagogy-or-so-you.html

Radical Possibilities
https://sharmanbursonramsey.blogspot.com/2017/11/radical-possibilities-your-children.html