Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   2/13/2024               Teachers push kindergarten propaganda

The other day, an article highlighted an offensive practice in a San Francisco Bay-area school—a school trying to boost test scores. However, this “progressive” idea will probably do the opposite, as an organization called “Woke Kindergarten” will provide guidance for teachers.

Look up “Teacher Who Alerted Public About SF ‘Woke Kindergarten’ Placed on Leave” (Twitchy.com/dougp). For a mere $250,000, “Woke Kindergarten will train teachers to disrupt racism and remove those barriers to learning…(however) test scores fell even further.” (San Francisco Chronicle) Any time you hear about so-called “anti-racism,” or in this case “anti-racist teaching training,” you can be sure you are seeing the “opposite-ville” tactic—anti-White racism is at the core.

It's a long-established fact that leftists resist exposing their policies to the public for open debate; they surreptitiously, stealthily incorporate them, especially into educational settings where unsuspecting parents can be kept out of the loop.

“The East Bay teacher who publicly questioned spending $250,000 on an anti-racist teaching training program was placed on administrative leave Thursday, days after he shared his concerns over Woke Kindergarten in the Chronicle. Hayward Unified School District teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley said district officials summoned him to a video conference Thursday afternoon and instructed him to turn in his keys and laptop and not return to his classroom at Glassbrook Elementary until further notice.

“They did not give any specifics as to why he was placed on paid leave, other than to say it was over ‘allegations of unprofessional conduct,’ Craven-Neeley said.” As usual, the reasons used to explain such incorrigible, censorious tactics are merely deflections and fabrications because the real reasons are indefensible. In this case, exposing leftist lunacy, and letting taxpayers know how their money is being spent, is now apparently considered “unprofessional conduct.”

Not having children in, nor much knowledge of, our local school curriculum, I have to defer to local parents to be on top of attempts to incorporate “woke,” or inappropriate sex or gender, programming.

An update on the scofflaw illegal aliens who, after injuring some of New York’s finest officers, “flipped off” America on their way to acquiring bus transport to the “sanctuary” state of California: It turns out, as reported on the 7^th, that they were arrested in Arizona. Subsequent legal disposition of said illegal aliens is to be determined but it’s probably too much to hope that they would be removed from our nation. At any rate, it’s no longer a California story; had I known of the Arizona arrests, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.

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A Colorado relative and I regularly share examples of the “Cali-fornication” of his once “red” state. It’s been said that national Democrats drool over turning the rest of America into California. Such idiocy as CA’s AB5—mandating self-employed workers be given “employee” status and benefits at the expense of their employers—couldn’t be passed in Congress (as our representative democracy would demand), and applied nationally.

Nevertheless, “Labor Department’s New Rule Is Bad News for Independent Contractors” (fee.org). “The Department of Labor’s new worker classification rule is a blatant power grab designed to make it more difficult for people to work as independent contractors.” You may recall the debate over AB5, and the general disapproval by the public at the time—of the heavy hand of government imposing itself onto willing worker/willing employer arrangements that benefitted all.

It was and is a thinly-veiled power grab for the crass purpose of giving unions more dues-paying members, since only about 6 percent of private sector workers choose to be in unions. The Department of Labor has for years sought to make it more difficult to work as an independent contractor (or IC)—whether as a “gig” worker, driver, commercial artist, musician, computer tech, etc.

It’s the same mentality driving the mistaken belief that “government knows best,” its wisdom in ordering the private, free will choices of workers is irrefutable. Of course, it flies in the face of polling that finds 63 percent of ICs say “working independently was their choice” …80 percent “always wanted to be their own boss” … 77 percent are “very satisfied” and 78 percent “have no plans to leave it.” Silly people don’t know what’s best.

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From the New York Post: “The true cost of EVs, making the US as bad as California.” EVs are bad for the environment and damaging to the economy in hidden ways, from child labor to extract the minerals, to the $50,000 in additional costs on taxpayers. Someone tell Gov. Newsom.

Last week, the last two large oil producers in CA announced $5 billion in write-offs, meaning losses in value, due to the state’s onerous anti-fossil fuel, climate hysteria.

Recent entries at donpolson.blogspot.com: “Who are the Military Personnel Working Against Trump,” “Robert Malone Warns that Outlets Are Trying to Suppress Toxicity Risks from mRNA Vaccines,” and “Congress and Courts Enable Energy and Climate Fantasy and Tyranny.”

Posting tomorrow, in light of last week’s events: “Do Democrats Now Realize They’re Screwed?”