Evening Update: School board member and Mouth-of-Glenn Doug Isham apparently lost faith in his conservativeness a bit in light of this diary. I linked below to his public Facebook page, which listed him as a fan of three Michelle Malkin FB groups (’cause one is never enough).
By midday, his FB page had magically lost those links. Naturally, I adjusted the link to go to the Google cache version of the page.
But now its back, albeit with one fewer Malkin fan links. I guess three was just too many.
Why the sudden concern about being pegged as a Michelle Malkin devotee? I dunno, maybe because he’s a School Board member, and she’s historically been so great with kids…?
Some education the kids get in Winooski, eh? First we hear that the school board joins in with the right wing crazies to protect students from evil, socialist indoctrination by proudly becoming the ONLY school board in the State of Vermont to censor a speech by President Obama to schoolchildren.
But it aint getting any better.
Word from the school is that the same day Glenn Beck trashed the cute and rather tame conservation video “The Story of Stuff,” School Board member Doug Isham brought up the topic at a board meeting, leading the Superintendent to drop it into the too-controversial-to-show-without-explicit-administrative-approval category, along with Presidential civics talks.
Beck says jump, Winooski schools jump. That’s twice now. If I were a school parent in Winooski, not only would I be starting to feel embarrassed, I’d be looking for some new school board candidates:
From: Stephen Perkins sperkins@winooski.k12.vt.us
Date: September 25, 2009 9:16:55 AM EDT
To: All Winooski staff wsd.staff@winooski.K12.vt.us
Subject: Controversial issueIt has been brought to my attention that a 20 minute video entitled “Story of Stuff” (two years old) is controversial in its content. If you plan on using this video in class please contact your principal for clearance and potential opt out letters if necessary. This is per policy. Following this procedure will save us all some unnecessary aggravation. I will not and do not have time to view this before the end of the day. I am sure that this memo will cause many to view it that did not even know it exist.
We are dealing with the effects of unbridled access technologically. Because this title was brought to my attention, I am following our policy.
I know…. what fun I must be having.
Regards,
Steve
—
Stephen L. Perkins, M.Ed.
Superintendent of Schools
Curious about the video? Here it is.
Perkins is whining about how tough his job is, and he hasn’t even bothered to look at the material he is efectively censoring! With this kind of knee-jerk administration, you have to wonder what else has been lost to simple expediency.
Beck shows himself to be the corporate puppet he is by going after this film. Unlike the persona he plays pretend in, this is revolutionary, when it doesn’t avoid the fact that the government (and the system as a whole) are not serving but enslaving us.
That the school board is scared of discussion of current topics like consumption and waste, or teaching critical thinking about our society and economy, is troubling. I hesitate to ask what they think the purpose of education is.
Of course, they’re just asking for kids’ natural subversiveness to kick in and find out what the adults are trying to keep them from seeing…
and one of them is “Malkin for Senate in 2010.”. And he finds a conservation vid he didnt even watch “controversial”?
His Fb pic reminds me of Frank Burns from M*A*S*H
Have any of you ever watched this video all the way through? And if you have, do you seriously think it should be shown on televisions at schools? I graduated from Winooski High School and don’t worry you get a much more liberal education than you apparently think. If a right wing video that is like this, which is obviously geared toward younger students, would you be okay with that being shown? Or do you think that maybe our school systems should be teaching kids more about math, reading, writing, and science (as in real science: like chemistry, physics, biology…instead of Al Gore science which I got from Mr. Crowley in BIOLOGY). Teachers promoting their political ideals of any kind is wrong and why don’t we make things objective and show both sides, which is what Doug Isham was saying in the first place. And trust me I know that for a fact. And if you have a real problem with it quit being a coward and speak freely to the school board, this is america where the first amendment guarantees you the right to express your opinions without fear of persecution. When I was at Winooski High School, and I know it hasn’t changed, the kids were highly uneducated, maybe if we spent less time on pointless social matters, and touchy feely crap the students would be able to read and write. Maybe they could do a basic math problem or know what is in our constitution.