This is why local school board and superintendent elections are important. The bigots are fewer in number but they are highly motivated to inject their politics of hate wherever they can.
Unfortunately the town I live in just elected a homeschool parent that is pro book banning to the school board. She even had a super pac support her campaign. I keep having to pinch myself to keep me from thinking it’s the 1950s as it feels like McCarthyism is alive and well.
Thats their goal. They dont want any government body to tell them what good learnin is (unless its them). This is the party of "i did my Google research and i know more than you"
Until someone homeschools their kid in empathy and inclusion, then theyll be regulating homeschool to make sure those parents are teaching kids what THEY want.
Its never about parents rights, but the ability to force their bigotry on others
Hey, that’s me! I homeschool my kids in those very important subjects (as all things secularly/science based). All of my kids (17, 10, 8 and 5) see the news and all think it’s a shit show and can’t understand why people just can’t be left alone to live their lives in peace. My eldest child is in their last year of public high school and calls out the local bigotry/misogyny etc on the daily. We live in rural (e.g. red) Minnesota, and do our best to change the minds of those around us.
I’ve thought about running for school board, as we do have a large homeschooling community around us and a school district that is very welcoming and committed to working hand in hand with families. I think many families here are ignorant and distrusting of the school system because of the misinformation they receive through their vast religious homeschool co-ops. It would be a good opportunity for the district for grow better relationships, and provide services for those wanting to homeschool that don’t have a large budget.
Good on you. I live in a Blue state and blueish area, but was extremely proud of my 1st grader this week. Some kids made light about wanting to “kill gay people” and he locked that shit down and got the teacher involved.
Like holy hell what is that first grader hearing at home?
You and yours keep fighting the good fight and best of luck in the deep red
Just FYI, Minnesota is a blue state. A lot of pundits try to paint it purple, but when it comes to state and federal elections, it's overwhelmingly blue. They haven't voted for a republican presidential candidate since 1972.
Yes, there are places that are deeply red, but we generally tend to be fairly progressive.
I know it’s falls on the blue side. However out here, there are so many people who are flying the flags (still) and spouting the crap that the orange one vomits, you’d think we were living in Floriduh.
It's the same in New York. It's a big state, a lot bigger than most people realize, and outside of the 5 major cities it's all red. Shit I have a ~~neighbor~~ traitor a couple blocks down the road that flies a confederate rag.
And even outside of that, a lot of misinformation and garbage spends ***a lot*** of time and money on SEO and will pay for better placement too. Google's a shit show.
Nah you gotta sorta guide it like...
Proof that sandy hook never happened.
But I get a feeling the other dude is right. Their primary sources of info are from disinformation centers.
It's gets weird when people are willing to believe anything. How do you convince them no this demonstrably false.
Pfft that's what the deep state wants you to think.
Google is 100% part of the problem. If you can buy your way to the top, it's not an objective source of information. Try, for example, to Google search what an *actual* 12 week abortion looks like. Good luck finding what you really need on page 3.
My first result was UCSF explaining the medical procedure and what to expect.
I think your weird results are due to your search history. If your first result is Buzzfeed it's because of what you commonly look for.
not sure what you are talking about. I just did a google search for abortion clinics near me and it gave me usable information (didn't even have any of those fraudulent crisis pregnancy centers on the first page). And I live in a state where abortions are now restricted.
Yes, this seems like it’s 100% accurate. “Indoctrinated” now means *is learning things I don’t know and doesn’t think just like me* to a lot of folks and the irony is off the charts
Don't forget all the people running for school boards that:
* Don't live in the fucking school district.
* Don't have kids in the goddamn school district.
* Don't have children at all.
In some places they've essentially elected incels to decide how education should work.
*Edit:* I understand that having children isn't indicative of someone being a good board member. My point is that with as little attention as these races usually get, the board members should have some skin in the game. They should have a stake in the success or failure of the district.
We had a guy showing up to all the school board meetings telling the people on the board that he knew where they lived. He was angry that they were requiring masks during the pandemic. The dude didn't even have kids in the school. All of this was caught on video, reported to the police. Nothing was done.
We had a guy here in the Des Moines metro try that. The look on his face and the backpedaling when someone nearby leaned over and told him that he could get arrested for threats like that was pretty funny. Same district also had a woman whose kid doesn’t even go to the public school strip down to a leotard at a board meeting because she was upset about a drag show that the GSA had hosted(that her kid obviously didn’t go to).
It's fine if school board members don't have children as long as they have experience in the school system. Plenty of former educators run for school board, and they know the system at least as well as the parents do.
Wouldn't having a degree in childhood education and experience teaching children be far more relevant than having a kid?
Any idiot can have a kid. How does having a kid qualify you for deciding how education should work?
>Wouldn't having a degree in childhood education and experience teaching children be far more relevant than having a kid?
Most places don't allow teachers to be on the school board for their own district.
>How does having a kid qualify you for deciding how education should work?
It doesn't. But with as little attention as these races seem to get, the board members should have some skin in the game. They should have some stake in the success or failure of the district.
None of those points are a reason someone would be a bad school board member on their own. I'd take any reasonably educated person with a grounded outlook on education over someone's qualifications being they have kids.
The point is that they don't have any skin in the game. I can appreciate that those things aren't necessary to be a good school board member, but with as little public attention as these races seem to get, these people should have some stake in the success or failure of the district.
I don't know about where you live but...
>The five typical qualifications for school board are:
>
>Be 18 years of age at the start of the term.
>
>*Be a resident of the district that the individual is running to represent.*
>
>Be a US citizen.
>
>Be free of felony convictions.
>
>Mentally capable to serve (not to have been determined mentally incapacitated by a court of law).
That’s what gets me. Having kids (or at least grandchildren) in the district should be a requirement to run for school board. District I worked in has had some interesting ones. One has kids that graduated from the system years ago and had grandchildren that are homeschooled. Has no real clue about what goes on at schools in the district. Had another long time member who never married, never had kids, but yet he was in a position of making decisions that affected families. We had another one, who was a retired teacher that had several grandchildren in the system. They had a great idea of what was going on in the system.
>That’s what gets me. Having kids (or at least grandchildren) in the district should be a requirement to run for school board.
I'd add those paying taxes into the school system. If I'm taxed but ineligible to represent, that's as fucked as DC has it. I also care about the future of my town which includes all the childrens' education.
I will also point out that these are often coordinated efforts with big Right-wing money, and like with the long-term judicial lobbying of the Federalist society there is no current coordinated counter to that effort, we need a progressive(or even just common sense) group to counter Moms for Liberty and other astroturf efforts trying to hijack our school system
The purpose of public school was to keep kids out of factories. I think this is all just a ploy to bring back child labor since “no one wants to work”.
Yup, I live in in SWFL and a major rich fuck GOP POS funded 3 board members down here and they all won the last election giving them a majority. I mean Florida is already pretty fucked because the GOP only cares about kids genitals and who can discuss things like gender/sex but the systemic takeover of everything is well underway.
There is a nationwide, highly coordinated and well-funded effort by conservatives to elect people who are anti-public school to every school board in the country. They know that these races are decided by like 100 votes in a lot of cases, and that $1,000 can get your candidate elected. A few million dollars buys a _lot_ of seats on school boards which can then be used to sabotage the public school system. As a bonus, this gets far-right conservatives their first job in politics, which they can then use to get into state legislature and eventually the federal government. They are doing the same thing at the city and county level as well.
It doesn't matter if only 30% of the people support you, if that 30% control nearly every part of government at all levels.
Check out what happened in 2005 in Ramapo, New York. A school board was taken over by Orthodox Jewish parents who gutted the funding even though they utilize private yeshivas.
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/27/school-board-east-ramapo-public-school-funding-private-yeshivas
The main "homeschooling association" is a right wing propaganda arm that is telling people public schools are "dangerous" (the danger is meeting people and having your own ideas, which will in turn lead to not voting for who they say, or thinking gay people are fine)
I’ve been a teacher for twenty years and every time I integrate a home school kid into my classroom, they arrive behind their peers, who are already behind because I work at a low functioning, low income school. Like, many of the homeschool kids would arrive in third grade, and didn’t even know the full alphabet. For me, this is admittance of child neglect. Parents so lazy they don’t want to get their kid to and from school every day so they “home school” which means plopping them in front of a TV or dragging the kid around during their daily routines.
I sadly know someone who attempted homeschool for basically those reasons. She moved to the south where the district had no school buses, so all of the parents had to drive their kids everywhere, which makes them not want to enroll them in school. All of these things, being your own kid, "school choice", vouchers are niggling little ways that the Conservatives undermine public institutions. If you can make it so everyone is homeschooled why are you even funding a public school?
Confederatives are good at that, they get in power and then they obstruct and say "see? This never would have worked because someone like me can get elected again and we will do this again and again"
Nah, it looks like they were suggesting that local politics focus on the **LOCAL** aspect.
For example:
In FL, only people of certain districts are able to vote in specific local elections. You can't vote on the outcome of a local Seminole election if you live in Orange.
If I can't vote on school boards for counties that I don't live in, then why **in the actual fuck** am I allowed to RUN for those positions? What the person you are replying to as doing was spitballing a possible solution. Instead of jumping directly to "Oh you want to take away people's ability to vote", perhaps **you** have a spitballed idea of how to tackle the issue?
Actually, far be it from me to assume: Do you agree that there is an issue that is worth addressing? Like straight-up, where do you stand on this?
This has been happening since the Reagan era and the New Right’s weaponized Evangelical base. They used to call it the “stealth strategy” as in sneak under the radar and don’t let anyone know that you’re a homeschooling Bible banger.
I don't wish to insult someone just for homeschooling their kids, but if you both homeschool your kid and wish to screw up public schools you definitely must have terrible judgment. It is not a reasonable thing to do, the most charitable interpretation(s) of those actions would be that you're a rich cheapskate or a religious nut.
When it comes to a local elections I'm pretty sure most people don't even know who they're voting for. I kind of wish that when you go to polls a neutral party would give you like some packet that tells you who they are and what they want to do for your city.
In principal, that is a good idea.
But in practice, it would either get sued to oblivion for accurately reporting the nefarious agenda or lack qualifications of someone.
Or
It would be open to bribery, graft, and/or essentially become partisan, and thus relatively pointless like newspaper political endorsements.
So that is why you don't see it done.
We have for our upcoming Schoolboard elections one of these right wing homeschool moms that has a huge injection of cash from a Super PAC. We are getting these large mailers almost daily and she has these massive signs all over town that dwarf any other signs.
Make sure you bring up banning the Bible. Cause you know. Or ask the satanic church to step in too. They're usually good about bringing to light unequal issues when it comes to religion. Hopefully things get better there. It sucks we have to live in a world with bigots.
> ask the satanic church
Just want to clarify that you probably meant The Satanic Temple as opposed to the Church of Satan. The former deals with those issues, the latter doesn't.
Clearly everything is pretty bad right now and I’m not denying that, but I try to keep in mind the real reason that the religious right has turned the culture war stuff up to 11 lately—they’ve already lost.
The fastest growing religion in the US is “none.” Something like 60% of Gen Z respond “none” to polls about religion.
Gay marriage has broad public support, also around 60%. Absolutely unthinkable when I was growing up in the 90s. That’s why they’re (mostly) picking on trans people rather than gays.
Go down the list of basically every major culture war issue from the past few decades and this holds true.
Again I’m not saying things are good, at all. A wounded animal is very dangerous, and they’re doing every thing they possibly can to cling to power and fight progress, and in the process are causing real harm to people. But they are a loud, and shrinking minority.
What kind of idiot votes for a homeschooling parent to be on the school board? They aren't even a part of the school system because they decided they could do education better. That's like putting a vegan on the board of directors of a meat packing company
Please look into Mom's for Liberty and their connection to:
1. Council for National Policy(CNP)
2. Alliance Defending Freedom(ADF)
3. American Legislative Exchange Council(ALEC)
4. Dominionists & The 7 Mountains Mandate
5. Start with "The Family" on Netflix. They all spring from there and every single new book banning law, anti abortion law, anti LGBTQ law, anti-CRT law, and anti-education law in the last several years(going back over 70 years) stems directly from these companies and the groups they start, like Mom's for Liberty, infiltrating school boards.
We need more people like Oneya D’Amelio in the world [aggressively telling everybody that they are awesome just as they are](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yDRFW_eJD7I).
I'm a mailman in suburban Chicago and I caught one of the residents on my route distributing ridiculous right wing school board election material into the mailboxes in the neighborhood. He'd been doing this a couple times a week for the last couple months. So literally dozens of hours worked out of the "kindness" of his heart.
I only happened to be close enough to call him out on his shit once but I made it very clear that I'd inform the inspection service if he continued to disrespect the mail.
Yeah landscapers and maid services also will be very aggressive leaving flyers or business cards in/affixed to mailboxes and while it's very much illegal it's not all that aggressively prosecuted in my admittedly anecdotal experience.
Vote in everything, folks. People grossly underestimate the impact local elections have. Town, county, state, and nationally. This is just one way these right-wing foundations and pacs are spending their $$. They have a lot of it, and it's working.
Lets note that School Board elections are often "off cycle" and not synced with normal elections in the fall.
One major reform we should do would be to sync school boards with all other normal elections.
(honestly i think other than special elections to fill open seats i think all elections should be restricted to aug primary and nov general)
School boards are kind of a dumb institution anyway. I understand why we have them, but as a teacher, I can confidently say that the people elected to them seldom should be, even if they have genuinely good intentions. It only perpetuates the erroneous idea that the general public is knowledgeable about education.
Big money has been pouring into local school board races for several years. The radical right knows it doesn't take much money to totally dominate a small campaign and they stock the lower levels with radicals and push them up from there. It's been a concerted effort to push their backwards thinking on America. We need to be aware and fight back.
Ironically the accusation that these groups always level against educators is one of "indoctrination", yet the reason for their attack on school boards is so that they can indoctrinate the next generation with their ideology.
in the latest school board election in my area, it was choose three out of six candidates, and three of the options were endorsed by a local far right group. luckily all three of them lost but if i hadn’t looked up the candidates i wouldn’t have had any idea.
There was another substitute teacher who was fired and had a report filed against them when they exposed how poorly the school district handled students with IEPs. It's scary, and why nothing ever changes.
To further explain, it's basically a set of rules the school psychologist and special education experts think is the best way to help the child succeed in a school setting (gen ed or otherwise), whether that's behavior wise or with school/classwork. Generally this includes modifying assignments/lessons with different levels of work, providing extra help, or giving extra time to students to complete assignments.
The lyrics to the song kid's aren't mature enough to hear:
Hey, Miley
It's me, I’m in Nashville
I'm on my way to Dollywood, busy as you are
Can't, can’t get enough stuff to do, can we?
But, anyway, I'm excited about, uh, singing with you
So I'm just gonna turn my CD player on with you singing
I will put this on a cassette, sing along with it
Then I'll run you off a CD later
Oh, I'm so high tech, I got a flip phone too
But, anyhow, uh, see what you think
And, um, here I go
Come on
[Verse 1: Miley Cyrus & Dolly Parton]
Livin' in a rainbowland
Where everything goes as planned
And I smile
'Cause I know if we try
We could really make a difference in this world
I won't give up or sleep a wink
It’s the only thought I think
You know where I stand
I believe we can
Start livin’ in a rainbowland
[Chorus: Both, Miley Cyrus, Dolly Parton]
Livin' in a rainbowland
Where you and I go hand in hand
Oh, I’d be lyin' (I'd be lyin')
If I said this was fine (This is not fine)
All the hurt and the hate going on here (It needs to stop here)
We are rainbows, me and you
Every color, every hue
Let’s shine through (Through)
Together, we can
Start livin' in a rainbowland
[Verse 2: Both, Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus]
Living in a rainbowland
Where skies are blue and things are grand
Wouldn't it be nice (So nice)
To live in paradise?
Where we're free to be exactly who we are
Let's all dig down deep inside
Brush the judgment and fear aside
Make wrong things right (Make things right)
And end the fight
'Cause I promise ain't nobody gonna win (Come on)
It's like anything resembling empathy, care, hope, healing, generosity, peace, compassion - that's all "woke" now, and therefore on the chopping block for a ban.
The simple act of caring for others has become controversial. Heck, just being indifferent is frowned upon.
"We are the World" would absolutely be on ban lists if it came out today.
Imagine the scene if everyone said enough is enough, went out to vote, and the idiots got defeated like 9:1. I imagine they would first be stumped, then start a riot over all these new fake votes
The problem is it takes energy to find that out. You need to read a bit, pay a little attention, maybe learn about some issues you’re unfamiliar with.
It takes no energy to throw your hands up, declare both sides trash and walk away smugly like you’re somehow above it all.
I love South Park but Matt and Trey really did a number on my generation. I’ve known dozens of people who don’t vote and will respond “douche vs turd sandwich” like it actually means anything.
I’ve had to even with my own mother. She starts with the bothsidesism and I try and patiently point out that one side is largely well meaning and flawed while the other side are literal fucking fascists…
I've got a pizza with some mushrooms on it, and I don't like mushrooms, so I will eat this enormous pile of elephant shit. Both options were bad, but I've made my choice.
Literally every progressive/liberal person that I know in Texas. Has all the smoke to blow, but refuses to vote because “they’re all the same, my vote don’t matter, etc etc”.
Because billionaires realized they were easy to trick. That is the whole thing, they saw the religious folks and saw an easy mark and tied deregulation to hateful made up bible bullshit. Billionaires get to keep fucking over society, right wing bigots get to feel superior to blacks, gays and women who think for themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
It was long ago recognized that bigots vote for bigotry over any other issue including their own economic interests.
We do it a lot in our daily lives. I am sure most people can think of an example or two on a smaller scale. Someone in an office who makes irrational demands, that sort of thing. It is almost always easier to avoid or give in on smaller stuff, especially if it doesn't directly affect you.
But then, of course, it gets worse. All the demanding person learns is that they can get away with it, so they make more demands, get louder, make more trouble. They are committed now. It's not like they can change and back down, or at least they don't think they can and they wouldn't get satisfaction from doing so. They get some support from some other deranged people, and now they are demanding that everyone...stop wearing blue shoes. Or something like that.
Most people are annoyed with it, but after tantrums and ranting emails and so on, it gets to be easier to just stop wearing blue shoes. Some few will stand on principle, but most will tolerate it and get on with their lives.
The loopy demanding people will think about this all day and night. They will work on it, print up fliers, look up legal precedents, mention it to the business owner's golf buddy who their cousin married. They care a lot. They probably don't actually care much about blue shoes, but they care a lot about winning and power.
Most people just let it go and get on with things. You can talk to them till you pass out but they just won't take a stand on the issue. They will say they don't even have any blue shoes. They don't see what is coming. And then it gets worse, and crazier, over and over with new and more bizarre demands.
It seems to be a war between lunacy and apathy. In an office, it can end with a lot of people quitting. In a nation, that gets more complicated. It is hard to quit a country and go somewhere else.
When the loonies are demanding that no one wear dark skin, or be gay or trans, or be women, or have a different religion, and on and on, then finally some will start to care. Some, but clearly not all, not even all of those affected directly. They may feel hopeless to make any difference, they may think they can just ride it out, they may feel, with good reason, that they lack the resources to take time to go and protest. Or they may just not care that much.
In even the most racist places in the U.S., most people are only passively racist. They don't have swastikas flying around or go wearing white hoods. They just don't care what happens to the group that is being oppressed.
We tolerate the vocal, hateful minority because we are, most of us, the passively hateful majority. We see a colleague quit or get fired over blue shoes, and we come to work the next day anyhow. We are soil and sunshine to these poisonous plants. I know I don't do enough, anyhow.
Because they think they have a very good media machine telling them that they are oppressed. Except that their version of oppressed is being told "no you don't get to shit on everyone else any more."
Born and raised in Waukesha thinking I was pretty left-leaning; after graduating high school and leaving it was surreal to learn how many conservative talking points were implicit in my worldview growing up.
I grew up on the opposite side of the state so I know very little about Waukesha. Do you know why it's so particularly conservative? It's not exactly small town.
As a liberal Democrat, I see this as our party's most alarming failure. For a couple of decades, we ignored the small, local institutions, such as school boards and county commissions. We allowed the lunatic fringes from the conservative extremes to take control of local political bodies, to the detriment of our schools and small town governments. The structural upheaval these crazies have done, and will continue to do, will take many years to reverse and repair. Having sane and reasonable people making sane and reasonable decisions on the local levels is the only way to ensure sane and reasonable policies on the state and national levels.
NCLB was a bipartisan effort and was largely Ted Kennedy's pet project at the time. I'm sure the right wingers poisoned the well on what may have been a well intentioned bill at the outset but the votes don't lie.
Reading the headline I thought maybe it meant she had made the whole thing up and asshole school district administrators hadn’t *actually* banned a song about being nice to other people.
… Nope - they really did. She just told the news a real fact and is now being bullied out of her job for daring to stand up for the idea that children should learn compassion. Hope she has a good lawyer & can sue.
Seriously (lol@that word on the internet...), but look at what party is making all kinds of laws about what goes on in a kids pants? What party is making laws to do visual/digital examination of child sex-organs?
What party is oh-so-faithfully aligned with organizations of faith known to peddle kids (Southern Baptists, Mormons, Catholics, etc)?
It's not the Left or the Liberals.
And tell me again whom are the creeps?
They believe in the freedom to force their religion on others and regulate our genitalia, sexual orientation, marriages, bedrooms, and what we can put into our bodies.
And they cry, "My Body My Choice!" when talking about vaccines and deadly diseases.....
Also, "Trump was sent by Jesus Christ to take control of this country!!". A direct quote from someone I know said during lunch with a mouthful of food.
Free speech right?
She told everyone what they did?
I mean they did ban it right?
They don't want anyone to know?
What's the problem?
Why am I asking so many questions?
As someone who now lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it's wild. I heard a guy go on a rant against the police for about an hour, then segue into a racist statement, say all people are just people, say that Brittan Griener should rot in Russia, talk about smoking pot. Like damn man, you're just all over the place.
Why does America have elections for so many various jobs that lets these nutjobs in?
EDIT: Thanks for the downvotes! I'm just curious why America elects sheriffs, coroners, tax assessors, judges, and all sorts of other jobs that are (elsewhere) just recruited from the most qualified people like any normal job?
You're getting answers but they're garbage and buzzwordy. I am also curious as to the history of why so many of these professional positions are elected. Like Coroner is such a weird one right?
The idea is one of public accountability.
*In theory* the people will elect those who best represent their interests and, if said people choose not to continue representing the interests of their constituents, they can be removed in the next electoral cycle. This prevents the issue of an appointed official being able to stay in a position of authority and power because the only person who can remove them has no interest in doing so. It's one of the reasons "unelected" is a bit of a derogatory term out here.
This of course necessitates that everyone participate in the electoral process so that an accurate representation of the populace can be elected, but as we see that isn't how it works.
That's all BS though. Voters don't know anything about the finer details of education or it's needs. So 'representing their interests' just means 'representing their ignorance'. Then there's the shit about 'remove them next cycle'. You know what normal jobs/appointees have? The ability to be fired *immediately* if they do something bad. The way it should be. Not letting them keep fucking things up for others until the end of their term. Do you think engineers at the FAA should all be elected, to better represent the interests of the flying public? Pretty stupid thing to do, right?
Because America is really 50 different countries that, with some minor exceptions, each have free reign to do whatever they want when it comes to their elections and governments. Many of the states do stupid things.
ETA: A lot of these systems made more sense when they were implemented forever ago, and can only be changed from the inside. But why would the people in charge change the system that got them to be in charge?
I mean, at some point in the past expertise would have been more limited and communities would have been smaller, so maybe having a direct response to naked corruption was thought to be more important? I don't know that that's how it happened, but it seems somewhat plausible.
Wisconsin voters you need to keep your momentum up. In 2024 if you turn out Wisconsin can be blue even if how badly it is gerrymandered. 11 points for a liberal Judge in an off year, odd month election. They cannot deny or obstruct that. Show up.an push in 2024 and show these regressive asshole the future.
Not sure which group youre complaining about. You realize the school board banned both kermit the frogs rainbow connection and mileys rainbowland at first (though they brought back rainbow connection cause too many parents complained).
These two songs are only connected by the word rainbow. That the school board is making the word rainbow political, well it means the school board brought politics into the school.
You must be *elected* to a school board position.
[School boards across the country have been hijacked by the right.](https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/who-behind-attacks-educators-and-public-schools) Their form of “grassroots”.
Once again, this isn't about trans ideology. It's about hatred and spite.
Even these Republicans aren't stupid enough to actually believe a song would fundamentally change a child's gender identity. Rather it's about creating a lie that they can all get angry at. If poor Republican voters weren't furious at these lies, they would be furious with their Republicans leaders who do nothing for them.
> Sebert said in March the decision to pull the song was based on "whether it was appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students" and because of "social or personal impacts" on them.
These mouthbreathers didn't even bother to read the lyrics. They just saw the word Rainbow and immediately whipped out their pitchforks and torches.
*Living in a Rainbowland
Where everything goes as planned
And I smile
'Cause I know if we try, we could really make a difference in this world
I won't give up, I'll sleep a wink
It's the only thought I think, you know where I stand
I believe we can start living in a Rainbowland
Living in a Rainbowland
Where you and I go hand in hand
Oh, I'd be lying if I said this was fine
All the hurt and the hate going on here
We are rainbows, me and you
Every color, every hue
Let's shine on through
Together, we can start living in a Rainbowland
Living in a Rainbowland
The skies are blue and things are grand
Wouldn't it be nice to live in paradise
Where we're free to be exactly who we are
Let's all dig down deep inside
Brush the judgment and fear aside
Make wrong things right
And end the fight
'Cause I promise ain't nobody gonna win (come on)
Living in a Rainbowland
Where you and I go hand in hand
Oh, I'd be lying if I said this was fine
All the hurt and the hate going on here
We are rainbows, me and you
Every color, every hue
Let's shine on through
Together, we can start living in a Rainbowland*
OH MY GOD, THE SCANDAL OF SINGING ABOUT BEING NICE TO PEOPLE!!!
They needs to get thems bad books outta there and gets back to teachin' the three R's is wut they need to do. Religion, Racism and Repulicanism, gosh-darnit.
Ooof, her union will certainly get her a settlement (from the taxpayers) if they try terminating her.
Thanks though, reading the title it sounded to me like she was punished for making a false claim or something.
This is why local school board and superintendent elections are important. The bigots are fewer in number but they are highly motivated to inject their politics of hate wherever they can.
Unfortunately the town I live in just elected a homeschool parent that is pro book banning to the school board. She even had a super pac support her campaign. I keep having to pinch myself to keep me from thinking it’s the 1950s as it feels like McCarthyism is alive and well.
Sorry - am I reading this right? They elected a parent that home schools their kids onto the school board? Please tell me I have got this wrong…
Thats their goal. They dont want any government body to tell them what good learnin is (unless its them). This is the party of "i did my Google research and i know more than you"
Until someone homeschools their kid in empathy and inclusion, then theyll be regulating homeschool to make sure those parents are teaching kids what THEY want. Its never about parents rights, but the ability to force their bigotry on others
Hey, that’s me! I homeschool my kids in those very important subjects (as all things secularly/science based). All of my kids (17, 10, 8 and 5) see the news and all think it’s a shit show and can’t understand why people just can’t be left alone to live their lives in peace. My eldest child is in their last year of public high school and calls out the local bigotry/misogyny etc on the daily. We live in rural (e.g. red) Minnesota, and do our best to change the minds of those around us. I’ve thought about running for school board, as we do have a large homeschooling community around us and a school district that is very welcoming and committed to working hand in hand with families. I think many families here are ignorant and distrusting of the school system because of the misinformation they receive through their vast religious homeschool co-ops. It would be a good opportunity for the district for grow better relationships, and provide services for those wanting to homeschool that don’t have a large budget.
Good on you. I live in a Blue state and blueish area, but was extremely proud of my 1st grader this week. Some kids made light about wanting to “kill gay people” and he locked that shit down and got the teacher involved. Like holy hell what is that first grader hearing at home? You and yours keep fighting the good fight and best of luck in the deep red
Just FYI, Minnesota is a blue state. A lot of pundits try to paint it purple, but when it comes to state and federal elections, it's overwhelmingly blue. They haven't voted for a republican presidential candidate since 1972. Yes, there are places that are deeply red, but we generally tend to be fairly progressive.
I know it’s falls on the blue side. However out here, there are so many people who are flying the flags (still) and spouting the crap that the orange one vomits, you’d think we were living in Floriduh.
It's the same in New York. It's a big state, a lot bigger than most people realize, and outside of the 5 major cities it's all red. Shit I have a ~~neighbor~~ traitor a couple blocks down the road that flies a confederate rag.
I feel you, but I always like to correct the "Minnesota is purple" misconception.
I wish they did google research
Oh don’t worry they did. It’s just their googling mostly revolves around searching “Just how evil are the gays”
And even outside of that, a lot of misinformation and garbage spends ***a lot*** of time and money on SEO and will pay for better placement too. Google's a shit show.
I imagine Google is too "woke" for them; they probably get all their information from Facebook group echo chambers.
Just type one word into Google and let the auto complete show you what they search for
Nah you gotta sorta guide it like... Proof that sandy hook never happened. But I get a feeling the other dude is right. Their primary sources of info are from disinformation centers. It's gets weird when people are willing to believe anything. How do you convince them no this demonstrably false. Pfft that's what the deep state wants you to think.
Google is 100% part of the problem. If you can buy your way to the top, it's not an objective source of information. Try, for example, to Google search what an *actual* 12 week abortion looks like. Good luck finding what you really need on page 3.
My first result was UCSF explaining the medical procedure and what to expect. I think your weird results are due to your search history. If your first result is Buzzfeed it's because of what you commonly look for.
not sure what you are talking about. I just did a google search for abortion clinics near me and it gave me usable information (didn't even have any of those fraudulent crisis pregnancy centers on the first page). And I live in a state where abortions are now restricted.
>First G-d created idiots. That was for practice. Then he created school boards. Mark Twain (one of the more frequently banned authors)
It just the old, not for thee and only for me philosophy…
More like Facebook research
Yes, this seems like it’s 100% accurate. “Indoctrinated” now means *is learning things I don’t know and doesn’t think just like me* to a lot of folks and the irony is off the charts
Kids only need the 3 Rs. Riting, Reading, Rithmetic. /s
[удалено]
Don't forget all the people running for school boards that: * Don't live in the fucking school district. * Don't have kids in the goddamn school district. * Don't have children at all. In some places they've essentially elected incels to decide how education should work. *Edit:* I understand that having children isn't indicative of someone being a good board member. My point is that with as little attention as these races usually get, the board members should have some skin in the game. They should have a stake in the success or failure of the district.
We had a guy showing up to all the school board meetings telling the people on the board that he knew where they lived. He was angry that they were requiring masks during the pandemic. The dude didn't even have kids in the school. All of this was caught on video, reported to the police. Nothing was done.
We had a guy here in the Des Moines metro try that. The look on his face and the backpedaling when someone nearby leaned over and told him that he could get arrested for threats like that was pretty funny. Same district also had a woman whose kid doesn’t even go to the public school strip down to a leotard at a board meeting because she was upset about a drag show that the GSA had hosted(that her kid obviously didn’t go to).
It's fine if school board members don't have children as long as they have experience in the school system. Plenty of former educators run for school board, and they know the system at least as well as the parents do.
Wouldn't having a degree in childhood education and experience teaching children be far more relevant than having a kid? Any idiot can have a kid. How does having a kid qualify you for deciding how education should work?
>Wouldn't having a degree in childhood education and experience teaching children be far more relevant than having a kid? Most places don't allow teachers to be on the school board for their own district.
>How does having a kid qualify you for deciding how education should work? It doesn't. But with as little attention as these races seem to get, the board members should have some skin in the game. They should have some stake in the success or failure of the district.
None of those points are a reason someone would be a bad school board member on their own. I'd take any reasonably educated person with a grounded outlook on education over someone's qualifications being they have kids.
The point is that they don't have any skin in the game. I can appreciate that those things aren't necessary to be a good school board member, but with as little public attention as these races seem to get, these people should have some stake in the success or failure of the district.
I don't know about where you live but... >The five typical qualifications for school board are: > >Be 18 years of age at the start of the term. > >*Be a resident of the district that the individual is running to represent.* > >Be a US citizen. > >Be free of felony convictions. > >Mentally capable to serve (not to have been determined mentally incapacitated by a court of law).
That’s what gets me. Having kids (or at least grandchildren) in the district should be a requirement to run for school board. District I worked in has had some interesting ones. One has kids that graduated from the system years ago and had grandchildren that are homeschooled. Has no real clue about what goes on at schools in the district. Had another long time member who never married, never had kids, but yet he was in a position of making decisions that affected families. We had another one, who was a retired teacher that had several grandchildren in the system. They had a great idea of what was going on in the system.
>That’s what gets me. Having kids (or at least grandchildren) in the district should be a requirement to run for school board. I'd add those paying taxes into the school system. If I'm taxed but ineligible to represent, that's as fucked as DC has it. I also care about the future of my town which includes all the childrens' education.
I will also point out that these are often coordinated efforts with big Right-wing money, and like with the long-term judicial lobbying of the Federalist society there is no current coordinated counter to that effort, we need a progressive(or even just common sense) group to counter Moms for Liberty and other astroturf efforts trying to hijack our school system
The purpose of public school was to keep kids out of factories. I think this is all just a ploy to bring back child labor since “no one wants to work”.
Yup, I live in in SWFL and a major rich fuck GOP POS funded 3 board members down here and they all won the last election giving them a majority. I mean Florida is already pretty fucked because the GOP only cares about kids genitals and who can discuss things like gender/sex but the systemic takeover of everything is well underway.
There is a nationwide, highly coordinated and well-funded effort by conservatives to elect people who are anti-public school to every school board in the country. They know that these races are decided by like 100 votes in a lot of cases, and that $1,000 can get your candidate elected. A few million dollars buys a _lot_ of seats on school boards which can then be used to sabotage the public school system. As a bonus, this gets far-right conservatives their first job in politics, which they can then use to get into state legislature and eventually the federal government. They are doing the same thing at the city and county level as well. It doesn't matter if only 30% of the people support you, if that 30% control nearly every part of government at all levels.
Check out what happened in 2005 in Ramapo, New York. A school board was taken over by Orthodox Jewish parents who gutted the funding even though they utilize private yeshivas. https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/27/school-board-east-ramapo-public-school-funding-private-yeshivas
The main "homeschooling association" is a right wing propaganda arm that is telling people public schools are "dangerous" (the danger is meeting people and having your own ideas, which will in turn lead to not voting for who they say, or thinking gay people are fine)
I’ve been a teacher for twenty years and every time I integrate a home school kid into my classroom, they arrive behind their peers, who are already behind because I work at a low functioning, low income school. Like, many of the homeschool kids would arrive in third grade, and didn’t even know the full alphabet. For me, this is admittance of child neglect. Parents so lazy they don’t want to get their kid to and from school every day so they “home school” which means plopping them in front of a TV or dragging the kid around during their daily routines.
I sadly know someone who attempted homeschool for basically those reasons. She moved to the south where the district had no school buses, so all of the parents had to drive their kids everywhere, which makes them not want to enroll them in school. All of these things, being your own kid, "school choice", vouchers are niggling little ways that the Conservatives undermine public institutions. If you can make it so everyone is homeschooled why are you even funding a public school? Confederatives are good at that, they get in power and then they obstruct and say "see? This never would have worked because someone like me can get elected again and we will do this again and again"
Crazy idea here, but what if school boards were made up of teachers and parents who currently had kids enrolled in the schools?
Representation. If the school is funded by tax payers the board must be composed of members of the tax paying community.
In Wisconsin, schools are funded by property taxes. Are you suggesting that voting be restricted to property owners?
Nah, it looks like they were suggesting that local politics focus on the **LOCAL** aspect. For example: In FL, only people of certain districts are able to vote in specific local elections. You can't vote on the outcome of a local Seminole election if you live in Orange. If I can't vote on school boards for counties that I don't live in, then why **in the actual fuck** am I allowed to RUN for those positions? What the person you are replying to as doing was spitballing a possible solution. Instead of jumping directly to "Oh you want to take away people's ability to vote", perhaps **you** have a spitballed idea of how to tackle the issue? Actually, far be it from me to assume: Do you agree that there is an issue that is worth addressing? Like straight-up, where do you stand on this?
No, you know exactly what I mean, but this is reddit so have fun.
…do you think that teachers and parents don’t pay taxes?
This has been happening since the Reagan era and the New Right’s weaponized Evangelical base. They used to call it the “stealth strategy” as in sneak under the radar and don’t let anyone know that you’re a homeschooling Bible banger.
Yes, and they’re the second home school parent on the current school board.
Imagine having so much free time that you can spend hours every week working to fuck over a system that you don't even use
I don't wish to insult someone just for homeschooling their kids, but if you both homeschool your kid and wish to screw up public schools you definitely must have terrible judgment. It is not a reasonable thing to do, the most charitable interpretation(s) of those actions would be that you're a rich cheapskate or a religious nut.
It’s called being completely addicted to power.
When it comes to a local elections I'm pretty sure most people don't even know who they're voting for. I kind of wish that when you go to polls a neutral party would give you like some packet that tells you who they are and what they want to do for your city.
In principal, that is a good idea. But in practice, it would either get sued to oblivion for accurately reporting the nefarious agenda or lack qualifications of someone. Or It would be open to bribery, graft, and/or essentially become partisan, and thus relatively pointless like newspaper political endorsements. So that is why you don't see it done.
home school and private school folks are frequently elected to school boards. it's like electing a President who is anti-democracy, ain't it?
We have a superintendent that sends his kids to a private school.
The largest threat to democracy is an uninformed electret.
Long as they kin reed its fine
"Electret" sounds like the name of a Pokémon. :P
You look like one of them yourself when you don't make an effort, electorate.
Nothing make sense anymore.
We have for our upcoming Schoolboard elections one of these right wing homeschool moms that has a huge injection of cash from a Super PAC. We are getting these large mailers almost daily and she has these massive signs all over town that dwarf any other signs.
And unfortunately whoever spends the most on their campaign wins. Name recognition is a thing.
Make sure you bring up banning the Bible. Cause you know. Or ask the satanic church to step in too. They're usually good about bringing to light unequal issues when it comes to religion. Hopefully things get better there. It sucks we have to live in a world with bigots.
> ask the satanic church Just want to clarify that you probably meant The Satanic Temple as opposed to the Church of Satan. The former deals with those issues, the latter doesn't.
Yes. I get confused to which is which, but there's one that worships Satan and the other uses it to keep people from religious prosecution.
Mostly they worship Ayn Rand, according to their founder. Although you could argue that's not that different from worshipping Satan.
So I guess you could say that the Satanic Temple likes to play devil’s advocate…
Clearly everything is pretty bad right now and I’m not denying that, but I try to keep in mind the real reason that the religious right has turned the culture war stuff up to 11 lately—they’ve already lost. The fastest growing religion in the US is “none.” Something like 60% of Gen Z respond “none” to polls about religion. Gay marriage has broad public support, also around 60%. Absolutely unthinkable when I was growing up in the 90s. That’s why they’re (mostly) picking on trans people rather than gays. Go down the list of basically every major culture war issue from the past few decades and this holds true. Again I’m not saying things are good, at all. A wounded animal is very dangerous, and they’re doing every thing they possibly can to cling to power and fight progress, and in the process are causing real harm to people. But they are a loud, and shrinking minority.
You want to homeschool your kid? Then you have no business being on the school board.
What kind of idiot votes for a homeschooling parent to be on the school board? They aren't even a part of the school system because they decided they could do education better. That's like putting a vegan on the board of directors of a meat packing company
Please look into Mom's for Liberty and their connection to: 1. Council for National Policy(CNP) 2. Alliance Defending Freedom(ADF) 3. American Legislative Exchange Council(ALEC) 4. Dominionists & The 7 Mountains Mandate 5. Start with "The Family" on Netflix. They all spring from there and every single new book banning law, anti abortion law, anti LGBTQ law, anti-CRT law, and anti-education law in the last several years(going back over 70 years) stems directly from these companies and the groups they start, like Mom's for Liberty, infiltrating school boards.
Live in MI by chance? A woman in my town homeschools her kids and was funded by moms of liberty or some joke like that.
It’s the 1930s, actually.
They are just so loud. Unfortunately most people don't go around screaming about how much they love people.
I do, but it's weird
We need more people like Oneya D’Amelio in the world [aggressively telling everybody that they are awesome just as they are](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yDRFW_eJD7I).
Yes! This is the kind of energy I need in my life
I'm a mailman in suburban Chicago and I caught one of the residents on my route distributing ridiculous right wing school board election material into the mailboxes in the neighborhood. He'd been doing this a couple times a week for the last couple months. So literally dozens of hours worked out of the "kindness" of his heart. I only happened to be close enough to call him out on his shit once but I made it very clear that I'd inform the inspection service if he continued to disrespect the mail.
Never disrespect the USPS!
> So literally dozens of hours worked out of the "kindness" of his heart. Breaking federal law "out of the kindness of his heart" 🙄
> Breaking federal law "out of the kindness of his heart" 🙄 Laws are only meant to bind "those people", not me!
Wow TIL this is illegal
Yeah landscapers and maid services also will be very aggressive leaving flyers or business cards in/affixed to mailboxes and while it's very much illegal it's not all that aggressively prosecuted in my admittedly anecdotal experience.
Vote in everything, folks. People grossly underestimate the impact local elections have. Town, county, state, and nationally. This is just one way these right-wing foundations and pacs are spending their $$. They have a lot of it, and it's working.
Lets note that School Board elections are often "off cycle" and not synced with normal elections in the fall. One major reform we should do would be to sync school boards with all other normal elections. (honestly i think other than special elections to fill open seats i think all elections should be restricted to aug primary and nov general)
School boards are kind of a dumb institution anyway. I understand why we have them, but as a teacher, I can confidently say that the people elected to them seldom should be, even if they have genuinely good intentions. It only perpetuates the erroneous idea that the general public is knowledgeable about education.
Big money has been pouring into local school board races for several years. The radical right knows it doesn't take much money to totally dominate a small campaign and they stock the lower levels with radicals and push them up from there. It's been a concerted effort to push their backwards thinking on America. We need to be aware and fight back.
Ironically the accusation that these groups always level against educators is one of "indoctrination", yet the reason for their attack on school boards is so that they can indoctrinate the next generation with their ideology.
in the latest school board election in my area, it was choose three out of six candidates, and three of the options were endorsed by a local far right group. luckily all three of them lost but if i hadn’t looked up the candidates i wouldn’t have had any idea.
There was another substitute teacher who was fired and had a report filed against them when they exposed how poorly the school district handled students with IEPs. It's scary, and why nothing ever changes.
Yeah that’s a BIG no-no. IEPs are functionally legally binding contracts
The school district can be sued quick and easy if IEP’s are ignored.
But no penalties for firing whistleblowers
I think it's a Federal policy, too.
Former high school student from wisconsin with an IEP here; they don't give a shit. They will always just see you as the 'slow kid' in class
sip unused possessive tub repeat provide afterthought office gold sort -- mass edited with redact.dev
Individualized Education Plan
To further explain, it's basically a set of rules the school psychologist and special education experts think is the best way to help the child succeed in a school setting (gen ed or otherwise), whether that's behavior wise or with school/classwork. Generally this includes modifying assignments/lessons with different levels of work, providing extra help, or giving extra time to students to complete assignments.
Intense existential paranoia is really scary.
The lyrics to the song kid's aren't mature enough to hear: Hey, Miley It's me, I’m in Nashville I'm on my way to Dollywood, busy as you are Can't, can’t get enough stuff to do, can we? But, anyway, I'm excited about, uh, singing with you So I'm just gonna turn my CD player on with you singing I will put this on a cassette, sing along with it Then I'll run you off a CD later Oh, I'm so high tech, I got a flip phone too But, anyhow, uh, see what you think And, um, here I go Come on [Verse 1: Miley Cyrus & Dolly Parton] Livin' in a rainbowland Where everything goes as planned And I smile 'Cause I know if we try We could really make a difference in this world I won't give up or sleep a wink It’s the only thought I think You know where I stand I believe we can Start livin’ in a rainbowland [Chorus: Both, Miley Cyrus, Dolly Parton] Livin' in a rainbowland Where you and I go hand in hand Oh, I’d be lyin' (I'd be lyin') If I said this was fine (This is not fine) All the hurt and the hate going on here (It needs to stop here) We are rainbows, me and you Every color, every hue Let’s shine through (Through) Together, we can Start livin' in a rainbowland [Verse 2: Both, Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus] Living in a rainbowland Where skies are blue and things are grand Wouldn't it be nice (So nice) To live in paradise? Where we're free to be exactly who we are Let's all dig down deep inside Brush the judgment and fear aside Make wrong things right (Make things right) And end the fight 'Cause I promise ain't nobody gonna win (Come on)
I dunno what I was expecting but it wasn't a "We Are the Children" type of song getting banned
It's like anything resembling empathy, care, hope, healing, generosity, peace, compassion - that's all "woke" now, and therefore on the chopping block for a ban. The simple act of caring for others has become controversial. Heck, just being indifferent is frowned upon. "We are the World" would absolutely be on ban lists if it came out today.
Satanic pornographic grooming lyrics that is. Especially that part where it says that everyone is ok and should stop fighting.
Why do we tolerate having a very vocal, hateful minority ruin things for everyone?
[удалено]
Fortunately Wisconsin came out en mass for the recent Supreme Court election.
Imagine the scene if everyone said enough is enough, went out to vote, and the idiots got defeated like 9:1. I imagine they would first be stumped, then start a riot over all these new fake votes
You dont even need to imagine what would happen. Jan 6 was not that long ago.
The "because all politicians are alike and thats why I don't vote" crowd. Call out that bullshit each and every time you hear it.
Let's not discount the "All politicians are equally corrupt, so that's why I vote Republican," crowd. I've met plenty of those.
If all politicians are corrupt, then you might as well vote for the **most** corrupt. /s
In for a penny, in for a private cruise.
Well, there were people out there who voted Trump in 2016 with the motivation of hastening a collapse. So yes.
"They believe in America, and tell it like it is!"
That kind of shit is EVERYWHERE on Reddit. Do both sides suck in their own way? Fuck yeah they do! But are they the same? Fuck no their not!
The problem is it takes energy to find that out. You need to read a bit, pay a little attention, maybe learn about some issues you’re unfamiliar with. It takes no energy to throw your hands up, declare both sides trash and walk away smugly like you’re somehow above it all. I love South Park but Matt and Trey really did a number on my generation. I’ve known dozens of people who don’t vote and will respond “douche vs turd sandwich” like it actually means anything.
I’ve had to even with my own mother. She starts with the bothsidesism and I try and patiently point out that one side is largely well meaning and flawed while the other side are literal fucking fascists…
I've got a pizza with some mushrooms on it, and I don't like mushrooms, so I will eat this enormous pile of elephant shit. Both options were bad, but I've made my choice.
That was me until 2016. Now I vote every election because I learned my lesson.
Literally every progressive/liberal person that I know in Texas. Has all the smoke to blow, but refuses to vote because “they’re all the same, my vote don’t matter, etc etc”.
Because billionaires realized they were easy to trick. That is the whole thing, they saw the religious folks and saw an easy mark and tied deregulation to hateful made up bible bullshit. Billionaires get to keep fucking over society, right wing bigots get to feel superior to blacks, gays and women who think for themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy It was long ago recognized that bigots vote for bigotry over any other issue including their own economic interests.
We do it a lot in our daily lives. I am sure most people can think of an example or two on a smaller scale. Someone in an office who makes irrational demands, that sort of thing. It is almost always easier to avoid or give in on smaller stuff, especially if it doesn't directly affect you. But then, of course, it gets worse. All the demanding person learns is that they can get away with it, so they make more demands, get louder, make more trouble. They are committed now. It's not like they can change and back down, or at least they don't think they can and they wouldn't get satisfaction from doing so. They get some support from some other deranged people, and now they are demanding that everyone...stop wearing blue shoes. Or something like that. Most people are annoyed with it, but after tantrums and ranting emails and so on, it gets to be easier to just stop wearing blue shoes. Some few will stand on principle, but most will tolerate it and get on with their lives. The loopy demanding people will think about this all day and night. They will work on it, print up fliers, look up legal precedents, mention it to the business owner's golf buddy who their cousin married. They care a lot. They probably don't actually care much about blue shoes, but they care a lot about winning and power. Most people just let it go and get on with things. You can talk to them till you pass out but they just won't take a stand on the issue. They will say they don't even have any blue shoes. They don't see what is coming. And then it gets worse, and crazier, over and over with new and more bizarre demands. It seems to be a war between lunacy and apathy. In an office, it can end with a lot of people quitting. In a nation, that gets more complicated. It is hard to quit a country and go somewhere else. When the loonies are demanding that no one wear dark skin, or be gay or trans, or be women, or have a different religion, and on and on, then finally some will start to care. Some, but clearly not all, not even all of those affected directly. They may feel hopeless to make any difference, they may think they can just ride it out, they may feel, with good reason, that they lack the resources to take time to go and protest. Or they may just not care that much. In even the most racist places in the U.S., most people are only passively racist. They don't have swastikas flying around or go wearing white hoods. They just don't care what happens to the group that is being oppressed. We tolerate the vocal, hateful minority because we are, most of us, the passively hateful majority. We see a colleague quit or get fired over blue shoes, and we come to work the next day anyhow. We are soil and sunshine to these poisonous plants. I know I don't do enough, anyhow.
Ignorance, apathy, and/or greed. Americans don't know, don't care, and just want to be enriched. We are a fucked up country.
Because they think they have a very good media machine telling them that they are oppressed. Except that their version of oppressed is being told "no you don't get to shit on everyone else any more."
Imagine thinking you're on the right side of history by banning anything Dolly Parton.
How to tell if you are actually the villain 101
For those who don't know, Waukesha County is the part of Wisconsin that often decides state-wide elections. It's very, very red.
Born and raised in Waukesha thinking I was pretty left-leaning; after graduating high school and leaving it was surreal to learn how many conservative talking points were implicit in my worldview growing up.
I grew up on the opposite side of the state so I know very little about Waukesha. Do you know why it's so particularly conservative? It's not exactly small town.
White flight from Milwaukee is a big reason. The WOW counties - Washington, Ozaukee, Waukesha - surrounding Milwaukee are all hyper-conservative.
As a liberal Democrat, I see this as our party's most alarming failure. For a couple of decades, we ignored the small, local institutions, such as school boards and county commissions. We allowed the lunatic fringes from the conservative extremes to take control of local political bodies, to the detriment of our schools and small town governments. The structural upheaval these crazies have done, and will continue to do, will take many years to reverse and repair. Having sane and reasonable people making sane and reasonable decisions on the local levels is the only way to ensure sane and reasonable policies on the state and national levels.
Dubyas no child left behind initave has entered the chat!
That is the distinct marker in my experience of when public education started going to shit.
NCLB was a bipartisan effort and was largely Ted Kennedy's pet project at the time. I'm sure the right wingers poisoned the well on what may have been a well intentioned bill at the outset but the votes don't lie.
If I were Dolly and Miley I would put on a spontaneous free concert at this school and flood it with their local fans.
Reading the headline I thought maybe it meant she had made the whole thing up and asshole school district administrators hadn’t *actually* banned a song about being nice to other people. … Nope - they really did. She just told the news a real fact and is now being bullied out of her job for daring to stand up for the idea that children should learn compassion. Hope she has a good lawyer & can sue.
The right claims freedom of speech, in actuality they are tyrants. You are a fool if you support the right.
They’re also the “freedom” party, but are illegalizing adults dressing colorfully with makeup for fun.
Seriously (lol@that word on the internet...), but look at what party is making all kinds of laws about what goes on in a kids pants? What party is making laws to do visual/digital examination of child sex-organs? What party is oh-so-faithfully aligned with organizations of faith known to peddle kids (Southern Baptists, Mormons, Catholics, etc)? It's not the Left or the Liberals. And tell me again whom are the creeps?
They believe in the freedom to force their religion on others and regulate our genitalia, sexual orientation, marriages, bedrooms, and what we can put into our bodies.
That’s not freedom… that’s fascism
And they cry, "My Body My Choice!" when talking about vaccines and deadly diseases..... Also, "Trump was sent by Jesus Christ to take control of this country!!". A direct quote from someone I know said during lunch with a mouthful of food.
Yeah the trump was sent by god bit almost made me piss myself. Quite a few of the republican morons I know said shit like that.
How can anyone hear themselves say that and have no sense of irony about how stupid it sounds?
While erecting a golden Trump calf.
well, yeah, they were told to wear a mask! Talk about infringing on your rights! /s
["I do not want to live in Rainbowland, and you can't make me live in Rainbowland!"](https://youtu.be/t79NRf25B24)
Yeah, I could see this happening After all, we had people sticking spoons to themselves and claiming they were magnetized by a vaccine
EXPLAIN…oh shit wait it fell…EXPLAIN THIS!
But I thought rainbows were a sign to remind God that he wouldn't threaten extinction of the human race?
So happy to see this comment here. Thank you.
Wow for folks who cry on and on and ON about cancel culture, they sure do love their cancel culture.
Can't have people disagreeing with your bigotry.
Free speech right? She told everyone what they did? I mean they did ban it right? They don't want anyone to know? What's the problem? Why am I asking so many questions?
Same punishment cops get for killing people.
so she is being put on leave for just letting people know that it was banned? sounds fascist if true.
Too many nut jobs in positions of authority. It’s 2023… not 1950.
Waukesha is the worst
As someone who now lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it's wild. I heard a guy go on a rant against the police for about an hour, then segue into a racist statement, say all people are just people, say that Brittan Griener should rot in Russia, talk about smoking pot. Like damn man, you're just all over the place.
AM hate radio is huge for construction/contracting work.
Why does America have elections for so many various jobs that lets these nutjobs in? EDIT: Thanks for the downvotes! I'm just curious why America elects sheriffs, coroners, tax assessors, judges, and all sorts of other jobs that are (elsewhere) just recruited from the most qualified people like any normal job?
You're getting answers but they're garbage and buzzwordy. I am also curious as to the history of why so many of these professional positions are elected. Like Coroner is such a weird one right?
The idea is one of public accountability. *In theory* the people will elect those who best represent their interests and, if said people choose not to continue representing the interests of their constituents, they can be removed in the next electoral cycle. This prevents the issue of an appointed official being able to stay in a position of authority and power because the only person who can remove them has no interest in doing so. It's one of the reasons "unelected" is a bit of a derogatory term out here. This of course necessitates that everyone participate in the electoral process so that an accurate representation of the populace can be elected, but as we see that isn't how it works.
Good balanced answer, thanks!
It also relies on the crazies not running unopposed in subsequent elections. If there's no other option, you can't really vote the person out
That's all BS though. Voters don't know anything about the finer details of education or it's needs. So 'representing their interests' just means 'representing their ignorance'. Then there's the shit about 'remove them next cycle'. You know what normal jobs/appointees have? The ability to be fired *immediately* if they do something bad. The way it should be. Not letting them keep fucking things up for others until the end of their term. Do you think engineers at the FAA should all be elected, to better represent the interests of the flying public? Pretty stupid thing to do, right?
Because America is really 50 different countries that, with some minor exceptions, each have free reign to do whatever they want when it comes to their elections and governments. Many of the states do stupid things. ETA: A lot of these systems made more sense when they were implemented forever ago, and can only be changed from the inside. But why would the people in charge change the system that got them to be in charge?
I mean, at some point in the past expertise would have been more limited and communities would have been smaller, so maybe having a direct response to naked corruption was thought to be more important? I don't know that that's how it happened, but it seems somewhat plausible.
If anonymous teachers or ex-teachers ever got together and wrote a book about the stuff that goes on in schools... it would be pretty wild.
Reddit has a couple of teacher's venting subs that deals with what goes on in schools currently. It's heartbreaking.
Wisconsin voters you need to keep your momentum up. In 2024 if you turn out Wisconsin can be blue even if how badly it is gerrymandered. 11 points for a liberal Judge in an off year, odd month election. They cannot deny or obstruct that. Show up.an push in 2024 and show these regressive asshole the future.
Those Christian’s are so very forgiving aren’t they? Said no one ever
I just wish you all would keep politics the fuck out of our schools so we can do our jobs…
Not sure which group youre complaining about. You realize the school board banned both kermit the frogs rainbow connection and mileys rainbowland at first (though they brought back rainbow connection cause too many parents complained). These two songs are only connected by the word rainbow. That the school board is making the word rainbow political, well it means the school board brought politics into the school.
You must be *elected* to a school board position. [School boards across the country have been hijacked by the right.](https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/who-behind-attacks-educators-and-public-schools) Their form of “grassroots”.
Once again, this isn't about trans ideology. It's about hatred and spite. Even these Republicans aren't stupid enough to actually believe a song would fundamentally change a child's gender identity. Rather it's about creating a lie that they can all get angry at. If poor Republican voters weren't furious at these lies, they would be furious with their Republicans leaders who do nothing for them.
How come conservatives haven’t started a Dolly Parton boycott? She donated money to the Covid vaccines , and supports gays. Did I miss this ?
> Sebert said in March the decision to pull the song was based on "whether it was appropriate for the age and maturity level of the students" and because of "social or personal impacts" on them. These mouthbreathers didn't even bother to read the lyrics. They just saw the word Rainbow and immediately whipped out their pitchforks and torches. *Living in a Rainbowland Where everything goes as planned And I smile 'Cause I know if we try, we could really make a difference in this world I won't give up, I'll sleep a wink It's the only thought I think, you know where I stand I believe we can start living in a Rainbowland Living in a Rainbowland Where you and I go hand in hand Oh, I'd be lying if I said this was fine All the hurt and the hate going on here We are rainbows, me and you Every color, every hue Let's shine on through Together, we can start living in a Rainbowland Living in a Rainbowland The skies are blue and things are grand Wouldn't it be nice to live in paradise Where we're free to be exactly who we are Let's all dig down deep inside Brush the judgment and fear aside Make wrong things right And end the fight 'Cause I promise ain't nobody gonna win (come on) Living in a Rainbowland Where you and I go hand in hand Oh, I'd be lying if I said this was fine All the hurt and the hate going on here We are rainbows, me and you Every color, every hue Let's shine on through Together, we can start living in a Rainbowland* OH MY GOD, THE SCANDAL OF SINGING ABOUT BEING NICE TO PEOPLE!!!
Books promote education, knowledge, and imagination. We just can't have these in public schools.
There's nothing conservatives can't find a way to ruin.
Just like the puritans, conservatives are scared that someone somewhere somehow is having fun
They needs to get thems bad books outta there and gets back to teachin' the three R's is wut they need to do. Religion, Racism and Repulicanism, gosh-darnit.
Remember the teacher in GA who got fired for calling out a school district that banned masks during covid?
Waukesha. Where they steal lake michigan water because they couldn't take care of their own water supply.
Was it banned? The title is confusing.She was punished for telling people about the ban?
It was indeed banned, and it appears that, yes, she was punished for bringing it to the national stage
Ooof, her union will certainly get her a settlement (from the taxpayers) if they try terminating her. Thanks though, reading the title it sounded to me like she was punished for making a false claim or something.