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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER NINE: This is one of their most clever tactics: indulge parents, make teachers angry, and make others believe that the parents are running the school. This adds to the divide and conquer tactic, while serving as a decoy for their true agenda.
EXAMPLE: Piper School cheating issue in Kansas. Recently, a group of students plagiarized their biology assignments and the teacher gave these students a failing grade in accordance with her stated class regulations. The parents went to the board, and the board ordered the teacher to change the grades. The teacher resigned in protest. Now to most viewers this illustrated something simple - parents get whatever they want. Districts are afraid of parents and cower to their every whim. The truth is that only self-centered, unethical parents get what they want. Countless parents have told me of their frustrations getting services for their children, or for getting the principal to support them against their child's unreasonable teacher. The pattern with parents of substance is parallel to the pattern with teachers who have integrity - they are ignored, abused, and retaliated against for having the audacity to want something the district does not want to give.
In many ways, this tactic is almost too clever for the C students running our schools. Look at the public relations boost they get for catering to parents. Granted, many people are disgusted that these greedy parents prevail. But at the same time, they become certain that the schools operate with the customer is always right motto, when this is far from the truth. These occasional displays of compliance serve as decoys for their ongoing manipulation of the public's interest. Furthermore, look at the people they are indulging. These people mirror their me first agendas. One major indulgence such as ordering the changing of grades, reverberates throughout the district and, in this case, throughout the country, to cement the facade that the schools are about children and parents. There is a parallel in the false notion that teachers cannot be fired. Look at the stories on this sight. Terminations happen all the time. The only truth to this statement is that teachers won't be fired for being inadequate or for possibly hurting children; they will only be fired for being "insubordinate" and refusing to submit to unethical behaviors. The former, protecting children, isn't worth the district's time and money; the latter, protecting their self serving agendas, is.
Read: LETTER TO THE MEDIA RE PIPER SCHOOL CHEATING INCIDENT.Meanwhile, when a parent called Avoca West School asking to have the student council election moved into the future a few days because she was taking her daughter on a vacation (which should be an unexcused absence), but wanted her child to have a chance at winning, the principal honored the parent request because the parent was indirectly giving the administration a message - parent perks equal power. Although all the students nervously prepared to give their speeches that day, with promises that they would know the outcome by the end of the day, the teachers were told to delay the decision until Monday just so that special child had a chance to win. Within a year, that parent was assigned a position on the Board by the superintendent. She proved to be the player he needed, as she eagerly participated in disposing of dedicated teachers and fulfilling his other unjust whims.
People who operate with ethics are red flagged as trouble; people who operate without ethics are rainbow flagged as Board candidates. One has to be an insider to really know the game. Administrators align themselves with community members with like agendas to create a board as well as a base of supporters that will rubber stamp their every decision. There are many community members who sit on School Boards merely for the assumed prestige, with not real concern for the children; certainly the teacher stories detailed in this site indicate negligent to malevolent boards. And the players do not have to worry that they will be revealed, since the crucified teacher will have no voice. They can count on that. Well, at least they could before the Internet.
NAPTA is hoping that parents will send in their stories so we can start a link proving how many parents are abused and ignored for wanting what is right for their children or for the school in general. Just as teachers with high standards are exiled from this profession, parents with high standards are leaving our public schools in droves for alternative education, including home schooling. The media reports the cheating at Piper School and how those parents had the ear of the board. We need to hear more about how the boards ignore many of the right-thinking parents. If the media won't report it, we will. Please go to our page entitled ADVANTAGES, where the opportunity to fill out a form allows you to tell your story to us.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TEN: If manipulating parents, frightening teachers, and spreading propaganda fails, administrators resort to the legal system where they have nearly unlimited funds to prevail over parents and teachers. Insurance policies normally cover federal lawsuits, and taxpayers' funds are available for schools, while teachers and parents have to earn the monies they use to fight the system. They will then build a costly case to squeeze their opponent out of the arena, with the only winners being the attorneys. If all else fails, they will use special versions of documents to prove their case. See: ALTERED LETTER SUBMITTED AT DISMISSAL HEARING.
"To educate a person in the mind but not the morals is to educate a menace to society."
Teddy RooseveltNAPTA believes that documenting a districts' expenditures on legal fees provides much insight into the authentic agenda of that district. Using the law to cover up behaviors, decisions, or to retaliate are signs that the district is not about children for reasons too obvious to detail. The Freedom of Information Act allows citizens to access data on legal expenditures. Hopefully, more parents will scrutinize this as they realize that high legal costs are an indication of a need to cover up. Although the administrators will attempt to blame the teachers for being litigious, one has only to use logic to know that teachers would only resort to lawsuits out of desperation as they rarely have the funds. Does it really make sense that people who choose a low paying profession are self-centered, materialists? Furthermore, they stand to win extremely limited awards in most suits, yet file them to expose the wrongdoing. Because administrators are aware that painting teachers as people focused on using the courts to line their pockets is a hard sell, they play the mental illness card and smear the teacher.
POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER ELEVEN: Unwanted tenured teachers are usually asked to resign and promised a good evaluation in exchange for a resignation. If they decide to fight, it usually comes to a point where teachers are offered some money, and a good evaluation, if they sign a gag order. Very few of us make it past the gag order. Settlement agreements provide the escape card administrators need to erase any sinister deeds they committed. With taxpayers' funds to subsidize these agreements for teachers with the funds to fight, and measures to starve teachers totally dependent on their paychecks, administrators cannot lose. They have merely to suspend a teacher without pay to penetrate any layer of dignity remaining, and suck out her soul so she will comply. Darlene Goodman is our poster child for Gag orders; she succumbed when left with only a few dollars to her name. We are hoping that once our group becomes visible, she will be able to speak out about how they manipulated her into her current position just as the boys abused by the priests spoke in spite of their gag orders. Without the power of the media behind us to make the predators look treacherous for victimizing us, the districts will always prevail in court and Goodman cannot afford to speak and be penalized financially for doing so. The clock is ticking, however.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWELVE: Idealism is a quality that alerts administrators that they need to dispose of that teacher. They want players, not people of vision. They want soldiers, not critical thinkers.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER THIRTEEN: If a renegade teacher manages to survive these ominous obstacles, administrators can count on lawyers knowing that it is political suicide to take the side of teachers. The little money available for litigating in education emanates from the schools, not the teachers. What incentive is there for lawyers to specialize in representing teachers' rights when there is very little financial opportunity? A teacher can expect to find a lawyer with limited experience in this treacherous field who is easily manipulated, or worse, a lawyer who takes the teacher's case knowing he can sell her out and assuring future school business- for himself. She has no political power. Teachers rarely prevail. Horwitz's first two attorneys took her case knowing that her sole reason for litigating was to expose the scoundrels, but after over fifty thousand dollars of fees, gave her an ultimatum - settle or we will not represent you. They stated that there was little opportunity for financial rewards, and less for psychic rewards, which forced her to spend more money to hire a new attorney in midstream. Meanwhile, Pamella Settlegoode was awarded $1,000,000 for a case with less damages than mine. One has to wonder why lawyers are so hesitant to take on the schools? We have learned that the legal route, which is a challenge for any employee, is not hardly viable for teachers. The system is stacked against teachers. Thus, NAPTA was an outgrowth of this reality and of our determination to expose teacher abuse one way or another.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER FOURTEEN: Teachers are told by their unions and attorneys not to speak publicly. This is more than likely a ploy to keep the teacher silenced. It is difficult to trust this coming from a NEA attorney as the union has proven to help administrators violate teachers' rights. Although we are not attorneys, experience suggests that a teacher should only follow this advice from an outside attorney if the teacher knew she could trust him. In general, our findings have been that the legal route rarely provides remedies and only with extreme costs and hardships. You may lose emotionally by listening to an attorney and not playing your media card. Often this provides judges and lawyers the opportunity to silence the teacher, knowing that no one is watching.
Unfortunately, experience suggests that we need to go public to keep people honest, if it can be done at all. Talking to a personal adviser about your specific situation and weighing the options is suggeste. We have found that only those of us who have traveled this weary path, have a handle on it. Even well meaning lawyers have led us astray, lacking the knowledge of what really goes on in education. That is why NATPA exists. In the end, it must be your decision. But make sure you have all the facts at your disposal in making it. We now know the facts that we needed to know before we tried to fight our districts; the legal system, although more level than the districts, is not a level playing field for teachers. Nevertheless, we do believe that even losing our cases was valuable documentation about the lack of teachers' rights. The pattern is far too skewed to suggest that our legal system operates without prejudice against teachers.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER FIFTEEN: Teacher abuse exists at many levels, some less insidious than others. All result in harm to our children and contribute to a dysfunctional society. There is a definite plan to all this. There are STAGES OF TEACHER ABUSE! Knowledge is power! With the recent No Child Left Behind reform, causing pressure for test scores to rise, we can only expect an increase of abuse as administrators hold teachers accountable for what they can't possibly achieve within the perverted systems. And naturally, the ultimate recipients of abuse via test scores are the children.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER SIXTEEN: Making a teacher's life miserable is the method of choice of getting rid of teachers. If the teacher has tenure, they will try almost anything to avoid having to hold a tenure hearing due to the expense and possible exposure, so they try to push the teachers out covertly.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER SEVENTEEN: A favorite tool of intimidation against teachers is forcing them to go for a psychiatric evaluation with a special psychiatrist hand picked by the district. DR FINK IS TRUE TO HIS NAME.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER EIGHTEEN:A highly cherished tool of intimidation against parents is to report the parents to the DCFS, Department of Children and Family Services, knowing this organization will intimidate the parents. Suddenly the administration notes a small cut, or "hears a tale" and decides the DCFS needs to be called. The fact that Horwitz's district did nothing about a parent bringing her child to school tardy over half of the trimester did not warrant a call to DCFS. In fact, that parent was rewarded with the power to get her terminated. (Issues of abuse perpetrated by parents helping the regime are not featured at this site since we believe that most parents are manipulated into doing this, and the few parents who intentionally harass teachers are enabled by a system that could protect teachers if providing a good education were the underlying goal.) Another tool at administrators' disposal is demanding a costly and intimidating psychiatric evaluation. Any child who experienced this abuse carries the baggage of having been targeted as strange for a lifetime.
Special needs children, an area where federal funding offers greedy administrators opportunity, suffer severely, being continually denied their rights using all types of underhanded plans to do so. SPECIAL EDUCATION/GIFTED EDUCATION ARE PRIME TARGETS FOR CORRUPTION. Of course, this isn't limited to parents. Cheryl Mix' story details how her district falsely accused her of child abuse. Considering the love and devotion teachers have for children, one can hardly think of a nastier way to attack a teacher. They manage to go straight for the heart every chance they get.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER NINETEEN: Administrators have an arsenal of weapons to keep teachers and parents in line including, but not limited to, ordering psychiatric exams, smear campaigns, and engaging colleagues as quislings against teacher targets, with promises of lifetime jobs, promotions, and membership in the inner clique that exists within every school.See: QUISLINGS FOR JOB SECURITY.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY: You are probably wondering why retired teachers do not speak out, as they would appear to have nothing to lose. Many have stated that they feel guilty that they spent years within a system compromising their values and are embarrassed to talk about it. Also, they are so sickened by the years of having been subjugated and ravished of spirit, they want to run as far from education they can so they can heal. Furthermore, no teacher has believed that she could ever get anyone to believe this. We are the pioneers. Without the Internet, I don't believe we would have had a chance. Our initial group met over the Internet and has grown because of it. As hard as this has been, having to find enough local people to talk would be hopeless and even people like our officers, who have the spirit of Erin Brockovitch might have given up. To think retired teachers would have the energy or desire to take this challenge on without a vehicle to help spread the word, is not realistic. That is why they haven't. But I am certain there are many who really wish they did. Teacher burn out is more than likely teacher reaction to too many years of abuse, and yet it is blamed on the teacher. At the same time, it makes them simply not care anymore. We are hoping that they will go to LINKS and fill out the form, telling their story, so we can add another group of voices to our mission and document that burn out is another factor caused by our administrators rather than by any other factor; burn out is actually a face saving method of despising the profession that has so let us down. We want ABUSED TEACHERS, PARENTS WITH STORIES, RETIRED TEACHERS, BURNT OUT TEACHERS who are ready to see things as they are, or anyone who cares, including older students who can speak from personal experience about what they saw and how it affected them, to write and tell us their stories.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT TWENTY-ONE: Not every teacher suffered abuse, but most saw it happen to someone and may not have known it really was not the teacher's fault. As years go on, the number of teachers retiring from reasonable districts has steadily decreased.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-TWO: Administrators have succeeded at creating prejudice against teachers that is so rooted, even people of compassion, wisdom and critical thinking are duped into believing teachers are to blame for many of the ills of our schools. TEACHER PREJUDICE secures this system of organized crime, not only ensuring that parents won't collaborate with teachers to discover what really needs to be done to have good schools, but cuts off any possibility that society could hold teachers in esteem. It really is the deathblow to teaching as a respected profession.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-THREE: Administrations are delighted that there are perceived religious wars under which they can veil their problems. The Christian Right has been quite vocal about our schools being plagued by the separation of God and State and have thus turned off many folks who do not adhere to the Christian Right beliefs. The more divided the opposition; the weaker the opposition. The reality is that this is a problem of ETHICS VS. NO ETHICS, and not a problem of religion.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR: Special education and gifted education experience more of the negative impact than any other aspect of education. Indirectly, all children are harmed by children whose needs are not met as administrators drain the resources of the classroom. With the schools desire for cookie cutter teachers and cookie cutter children, special needs and divergent thinking are areas of scorn, rather than promise. A special page will be constructed detailing these most troubled areas. SPECIAL-GIFTED EDUCATION
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-FIVE: Heroes and public officials who have demonstrated genuine concern for our children are scarce. We intend to devote a page to these people as we discover them. Whereas the RIDING THE GRAVY TRAIN page will detail those whose focus is opportunity, HEROES IN EDUCATIONwill feature the lights in this dark tunnel. We hope to see this section expand rapidly.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-SIX: Reform cannot begin until the truth is revealed. A doctor cannot cure a disease if it hasn't been diagnosed. Our federal government's attempt at reform has and will continue to fail, because their methods are not based on reality. In fact, federal reform has fortuitously contributed to more teacher and student abuse and OPPORTUNITIES TO SQUANDER FUNDS AND HEAP ON MORE ABUSE.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-SEVEN: Propaganda and skilled public relations assure that the truth will not be known. But there are additional layers of insurance that this dark secret will remain buried. Our schools are held parallel to the status of motherhood and apple pie - nearly sacred. Many people accuse teachers who try to break the silence of being many things, ranging from being unprofessional to being outright sacrilegious. Many in the Catholic Church admittedly relied on this same protection for many years. And beyond even these privileged layers to help harbor their secrets, we have PHONY AWARDS to seal the plastic encasing this demented system. Our schools and their misdeeds have been mummified both by cultural thought and a system of continuous reinforcement. THE NATIONAL EXCELLENCE AWARDS and THE BLUE RIBBON AWARDS adorn some of our most egregious school systems.
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POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-EIGHT: Attorneys play an integral role in covering up the corruption in education and help perpetuate a system dependent on teacher abuse by using their infamous LAWYERS' TRICKS TO HELP CRUCIFY TEACHERS.
POLITICAL INSIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-NINE: The more corrupt our schools are, the more they employ public relation tactics to appear loving and caring. TOO MANY OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS INDULGE IN PHONINESS, PRETENSE, AND FAKERY.
"Whether it's sports, business or politics, whenever we divorce issues of competence from issues of character, we create a class of amoral professionals who think they're exempt from common standards of honor and decency. This discredits and demeans the moral standing of everyone involved."
Michael Josephson
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