Not at all!

Ohio Republican Governor Forces Schools To Partner With Religious Groups If They Want Taxpayer Dollars

In a blatant violation of separation of church and state, Ohio’s Republican governor is literally forcing public schools to partner with religious groups if they want taxpayer funding. Because Ohio voters are apparently gluttons for punishment and chose not to oust incumbent Governor John Kasich, they now have to live with the reality that one way or another, their kids are going to be preached to and possibly indoctrinated into a religious sect. That’s Kasich’s “vision” under a mentoring program that requires schools to partner with a business and a church if they want to qualify for a piece of $10 million given to schools that work with at-risk students. There are no exceptions to the rule and schools who fail to comply with Kasich’s demands will receive zero funding. Despite religious groups clearly being given the red carpet welcome into schools with or without the approval of students and their parents, an Ohio Department of Education analyst insists that religious partners won’t be preaching to students in an effort to convert them.

“The faith-based organization is clearly at the heart of the vision of the governor. We do not foresee any proselytizing happening between mentors and students. That’s not really what we’re seeking.”

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols told the press, “The governor believes faith-based organizations play an important role in the lives of young people” when asked about why religion is being forced upon schools as a requirement for them to receive public funds. Of course, one wonders if the religious organization requirement only restricts schools to partnering with Christian groups, or can other groups such as the Satanic Temple, atheists, and pagans become partners as well? Because we all know that if these other religious groups are prohibited from being partners, Republicans will once again be forced to show their cards and reveal themselves as the conservative “Christian” lackeys we know they all are. The fact is, withholding public money from schools just because they don’t want to intermingle with a church is wrong. It’s also unconstitutional. There is a reason we have separation of church and state. It would be acceptable if religious groups helped students without preaching to them and pushing religious beliefs on them, but it’s inevitable that a religious partner will do that exact thing, thus violating the constitutional rights of the students and outraging many in the process. In the end, this is just another idea concocted by the GOP to insert religion in schools where it doesn’t belong.

Father Open Carries Gun to School; Schools Come Up with Interesting Solution

The schools of Huron Valley, Michigan face something of an odd problem recently: what to do about parents open-carrying guns in school. It’s a complex problem, in a very particular place…and the administrators of that place have settled on an equally unique solution.

Yesterday, a parent picking up his child from school walked onto the grounds with a pistol strapped cowboy-style to his hip. The school hasn’t identified the man, but his presence poses a sticky conundrum for officials.

On the one hand they’ve got, of course, the SECERND AH-MEN-DERMENT! In Michigan, it is currently illegal to carry a concealed weapon into a school, even if you have a concealed carry license. But, by Michigan law, those with a concealed carry licenses are permitted to open carry anywhere, including school grounds.

On the other hand, you’ve got…a school, and the fact that it’s impossible to tell the difference between the “good guys” with the concealed carry license, and the psychos who could whip that gun out at any time and start blowing children away. Schools don’t exactly have the luxury of taking anyone’s word for their good intentions — which is precisely why they have the “emergency procedures they do.

Kim Root, Director of Community Relations for Huron Valley schools, explains how they’re planning to deal with those who would turn every elementary school into an Open Carry rally:

“What we would do is we would apply our emergency procedures in the instance that someone chooses to open carry. For example whenever someone chooses to open carry on school grounds, we would apply our emergency procedures which would include going on lockdown.”

When those “emergency procedures” are triggered, the school automatically calls 9-1-1 to get police on scene. Once the police arrive, and determine whether or not the person is a threat, the school goes off of “lockdown,” and daily activities commence. It could take an hour or more to clear a lockdown, during which time all school functions effectively stop, and students are locked in classrooms unable even to go to the restroom.

And they’re going to do this every. Single. TIME. someone open carries a gun into a school.

Said Kim Root:

“We will use our emergency procedures to ensure that we are doing what the community has asked us to do. And that is to protect the safety of our students first.”

Of course, this policy will have two other, slightly less positive effects on the Open Carry crowd. First, it will do exactly the opposite of what the Open Carry people are trying to accomplish. Which is: normalization of weapons, violence and threats thereof. Second, it’s bound to create thousands and thousands of brand-new voters, all asking the same questions, and arriving at the exact same sentiment:

“What do you mean I can’t go to the bathroom? Because of some Open Carry guy? Ugh…what a bunch of a**holes.”

Teachers Invent School Safety Product

A school shooting is a parent's worst nightmare, but a handful of teachers have come up with something they think will save lives.

A group of small town teachers have a big idea called "The Sleeve." It's a device that slips over the closer-arm of a door to prevent the door from being opened from the outside. The idea is to buy time for teachers and students during a school shooting.

"It's in the back of the mind every time, every time we walk through those school doors, ya know, could this be the day,” said President of Fighting Chance Solution Dan Nietzel.

Tactics during drills didn't do the trick, so the team came up with a better system. The Sleeve is made of solid carbon steel that can withstand 550 pounds of force.

“The Sleeve is meant to be fast and easy. It takes only a second to slip on, and when there's an active shooter, seconds are what count,” said President of Muscatine Community College Bob Allbee.

Muscatine Community College is installing The Sleeve in all their classrooms.

"Hopefully, we'll never use them. Hopefully, we'll just have to dust them every once in a while and they'll be on the wall, but in case we need them that's why they're there, again we're just trying to buy some time," said Allbee.

The sleeve is painted 'safety red,' like a fire alarm, to help address concerns of teachers being locked out.

"When students think of this, see this they think OK safety, ya know this is not to be messed with unless it's a life or death situation," said Nietzel. 

The Sleeve is custom-made and small enough hide away in a drawer. They cost $65 and measurements can vary.

Illinois Family Institute Analyst: Libraries Need Books About The 'Joy' Kids Feel When Their Gay Parents Die

Right Wing Watch points out a disgusting piece over at the Illinois Family Institute website, in which IFI "cultural analyst" Laurie Higgins writes about her displeasure with the upcomingBanned Books Week - railing against librarians for their "hysteria-fomenting" efforts to prevent the banning of children's books with pro-LGBT content.

She writes:

The ALA pursues its hysteria-fomenting goal chiefly by ridiculing parents who, for example, don’t want their six-year-olds seeing books about children or anthropomorphized animals being raised by parents in homoerotic relationships. (Scorn and woe to those parents who hold the now-censored belief that homoeroticism—even homoeroticism presented in whitewashed, water-colored images—doesn’t belong in the picture books section of public libraries). 

Higgins then asks if these librarians will be equally willing to promote "pro-heterosexuality" books:

Will they ask for young adult (YA) novels about teens who feel sadness and resentment about being intentionally deprived of a mother or father and who seek to find their missing biological parents?

Will they ask for dark, angsty novels about teens who are damaged by the promiscuity of their “gay” “fathers” who hold sexual monogamy in disdain?

Will they ask for novels about young adults who are consumed by a sense of loss and bitterness that their politically correct and foolish parents allowed them during the entirety of their childhood to cross-dress, change their names, and take medication to prevent puberty, thus deforming their bodies?

Will they ask for novels about teens who suffer because of the harrowing fights and serial “marriages” of their lesbian mothers?

Will they ask for picture books that show the joy a little birdie experiences when after the West Nile virus deaths of her two daddies, she’s finally adopted by a daddy and mommy?

Surely, there are some teens and children who will identify with such stories.

Five of Cliven Bundy’s Grandkids Pulled From School Because They Can’t Bring Weapons to Class

If you thought you’d never hear this man’s name again, you were mistaken. Five of Cliven Bundy’s grandchildren were pulled from their Clark County, Nevada schools because of a ban on bringing knives on campus.

After officials at Virgin Valley High School in Mesquite told Ryan Bundy, Welfare Cowboy’s son, that his 15-year-old daughter was not permitted to bring her pocketknife to school because Clark County School policy prohibits weapons on campus, Bundy pulled his children from school.

Bundy disputes the claim that knives — sharp, pointy metal objects — are weapons, and explained to administrators that he has always taught his children it is essential to always carry one with them.

“I’ve taught my children a knife is important to have,” Bundy said. “It’s a tool that you use, and you need to have one with you at all times.”

The Bundy children claim that they use their knives for their daily chores on the family ranch, and their father claims that the school district is attempting to make his children look like delinquents just because they are violating school policy by bringing blades on campus.

“They’re trying to make my child a criminal – and any other child a criminal – for simply having something, and that is not right,” Ryan Bundy explained.

Bundy did not explain why his children needed to have their weapons with them at school, but he said that he plans to speak with school administrators in hopes of convincing them to allow his kids to have special privileges — something he likely learned from his father, who thinks he is above paying grazing fees.

Bundy’s daughter hopes that her father resolves this insane conflict soon, as she was excited to begin her freshman year at Virgin Valley High.

“I hope that somehow figures this out because I still would like to go to this school,” she said “I really don’t want to be homeschooled.” 

And who can blame her? Would you want this man teaching you…anything?

Transgender teen told she can't come to school as girl

The last time Rachel Pepe was at school, she was known to her teachers and classmates as Brian.

Now, as the 13-year-old transitions her identity and gender with the support of her mother, Rachel may not be able to go back.

Her mother says an official at Thorne Middle School told her Rachel must come back school dressed as Brian and prepared to act like Brian. No accommodations would be made and no out-of-district educational options would be available.

The decision by the Thorne official is a violation of state and federal anti-discrimination laws, experts argue. Now, Middletown's school superintendent says his district will work with Rachel's family to reach a resolution.

"He was going to school last year as Brian," said Angela Peters, Rachel's mother, adding that her child developed stress-related seizures, depression and panic attacks. "How can I send her back as Rachel? And I am not sending her back as Brian because the depression will start again."

Rachel remained deeply isolated from the rest of the student body but still, her mother said, the children would bully her because she was so quiet.

"She would get off the bus and just cry," Peters said. "Then she would go to sleep for 17 or 20 hours and refuse to go back there."

North Carolina Charter School Bill Drops Protections For LGBT Students

Last Friday, new legislation was approved by the North Carolina House of Representatives that fails to provide protections for LGBTI students at charter schools run by for-profit management companies, reports NC Policy Watch.

Senate Bill 793 prevents charter schools from discriminating on the basis of “ethnicity, national origin, gender, or disability” but fails to provide specific protections for LGBT students.

The bill, which also allows charter schools to keep employees’ salaries secret, included protections for LGBT students in earlier versions.

Democrat Rep. Marcus Brandon, who is the only openly LGBT member of the North Carolina General Assembly, had argued that the LGBT community is not a protected class in North Carolina. This prompted the need for a previous amendment that drew on language from federal law, which was eventually stripped in a conference committee.

The Senate must act on the bill before it goes to the Governor.

Last month, during a debate on Senate Bill 793, North Carolina Republican Representative Paul Stam compared pedophilia, incest, masochism and other illegal sexual practices with homosexuality.

Cue NRA Outrage: A Fireman Invents A Simple Tool To Keep A Shooter Out of The Classroom

An Ohio firefighter and SWAT Medic has invented a device that could save lives in the event of yet another school shooting or other active shooter situation inside of a building, reports ABC6.

Troy Lowe, the man who invented the device, teaches shooter response training programs, but over the years has noticed a similar reaction of everyone involved. Commenting on the reaction, Lowe said, “You’ll see the fine motor skills go away when you increase the pressure a little bit.”

As a response, he invented the “The Barracuda Intruder Defense System”, a door security product that he says is easy to use and can be quickly deployed when seconds count and easing the pressure is critical.

According to Lowe, the idea is “to secure yourself inside the room without opening the door.”

ABC6 points out there are a few different design types:

There are a few different designs of the steel-based product, so you can apply it to an inward-facing door and an outward-facing door. And Lowe says the braces are strong. 

“When they were tested in the factory, the door failed before the devices did,” Lowe said. “There’s potential to save a lot of lives.”

Now regional manufacturer Bilco is selling the devices for around $100 apiece, although the company says to email barracuda@bilco.com for exact pricing. Lowe says the company’s Zanesville plant will help in the manufacturing.

Another individual, Daniel Nietzel, of Indiana, has also invented a similar device that could be used in the event of a shooting.

You can learn more about Lowe’s product here, and see a demonstration in the video below:

Texas’ Abbott: ‘Drive around’ to look for dangerous chemicals

It’s been well over a year since a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, exploded, killing 15 people and injuring more than 200 others, while leveling a significant part of the small town. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, there were plenty of questions raised about prevention and public safety.

Indeed, as we talked about last year, it seemed like a good time for a conversation about the fact that the plant had no alarms, automatic shutoff system, or firewall. It was also time for a discussion about zoning laws that allowed a highly-explosive plant to be built across the street from two schools and a nursing home.

A year later, however, no new safeguards have been created.

The issue is coming to the fore again recently in the Lone Star State because Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), the frontrunner in this year’s gubernatorial race, declared that state records on dangerous chemical locations can be withheld from the public. The Texas Tribune reported yesterday on the state A.G.’s rationale.

Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, under fire for blocking public access to state records documenting the location of dangerous chemicals, said Texans still have a right to find out where the substances are stored.

As long as they know which companies to ask.

“You know where they are if you drive around,” Abbott told reporters Tuesday. “You can ask every facility whether or not they have chemicals or not. You can ask them if they do, and they can tell you, ‘Well we do have chemicals or we don’t have chemicals,’ and if they do, they tell which ones they have.”

This would be hilarious if it weren’t so alarming.

Teachers Leave Archdiocese Of Cincinnati Over Controversial 'Morality Clause' In New Contract

A revised teachers' contract in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has forced some teachers to leave their positions even after years of service.

First-grade teacher Molly Shumate and high school English teacher Robert Hague are among the veteran teachers choosing to leave the diocese over a 'morality clause'included in the new contracts. The clause reportedly prohibits teachers, whether Catholic or not, from having sex or living with a partner outside of marriage, using in-vitro fertilization, leading a gay “lifestyle,” or publicly supporting any of the above.

For teachers like Shumate, whose son is gay, the clause threatens to pit teachers against friends and family in order to keep their jobs.

“For me to sign this (contract)," Shumate told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "I feel like I would be telling my son I’ve changed my mind, that I don’t support him as I did. And I won’t do that."

Even as a lifelong Catholic and a teacher of 14 years in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Shumate says the morality clause is where she draws a line.

"In my heart, I know I need to go," Shumate told CNN. "I need to find another avenue because I am going to support my son. If in five or 10 years he finds a partner and he wants to be with that person, I'm going to be in the front row with the biggest bouquet."

Cincinnati Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco sees nothing new or unusual in the revised contract, he told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

"Nobody who signed this year's contract or last year's contract should hesitate to sign the 2014-2015 agreement. All say the same thing – that the teacher will not publicly act or speak against the teachings of the Catholic Church."

The Cincinnati branch of Catholic activist group Voice of the Faithful launched a billboard campaign opposing the new contracts with signs saying, "Would Pope Francis sign the new Catholic teacher contract?"

Others call the clause "unnecessary" and "intimidating," including Catholic lawyer Tim Garry who called the document "a contract in search of a problem."

Robert Hague, who has taught high school English for 50 years and is now leaving the archdiocese, told CNN the contract could alienate many more of the current 2,200 current teachers. "It is an embarrassment and a scandal," Hague said, "and will drive even more Catholics away from an institution so out of touch with its times."

Elementary School Forces Students To ‘Pay’ To Use Bathroom, Students Wet Themselves Instead

This past May 15 was a yellow-letter day at Mill Plain Elementary school in Washington state when not one, but two young ladies in the 3rd grade chose to forgo a trip to the restroom rather than provide payment to their teacher. Unfortunately, it was later revealed that both of those students later wet themselves in class. Despite this opportunistic teacher’s attempt to extort money from her students for things like candy and bathroom breaks, the Evergreen Public School District has decided no disciplinary action is required.

Of course, there is more to the story than meets the eye. The money the 3^rd graders possessed was not exactly legal tender. As part of a rewards program established in the grade, students would be given “money” for achieving tasks and as recognition for good things done. After having earned their reward money students could trade for candy and other things.

In response to a marked increase in classroom disruptions, the teachers introduced a bathroom break fee. As the teacher explained, this method was meant to be least confusing because the money exchange system was already in place. Introducing a separate bathroom pass system would have required the elementary students to navigate two systems. The district and school also stated that, in cases of emergencies, students are not denied immediate use of the restroom.

The results of the first investigation, released Thursday afternoon, were lauded by Evergreen Education Association President Gloria M. Smith. Smith explained the exoneration meant her teacher would neither be placed on leave nor receive disciplinary measures. The teacher was only out of class on Monday of this past week, according to Evergreen Public Schools spokeswoman Gail Spolar.

A second investigation is also currently underway regarding the second 3^rd grader involved. Her mother, Jasmine Al-Ayadhi, is upset that she was never called by the school when this occurred.

They gave her an option of black spandex pants that were size 7 or boy’s blue shorts. My daughter is a size 10. She was being teased. The boys were making fun of her because of the shorts.

However the investigation turns out, Al-Ayadhi stated she would not be returning her daughter to Mill Plain Elementary School and would instead opt to home-school her.

How can you return a child to a school where she’s being humiliated and degraded?

Conservatives Appalled that School Children Are Encouraged to Have Fun, Not Engage in Cut-Throat Competition

What happens when elementary children are encouraged to have fun over competing against each other during a field day?  Republicans lose their collective minds, that’s what.

Parents of students at North Hill Elementar

y in Rochester Hills, Michigan, were sent a memo about an upcoming field day at the school.  Instead of students partaking in events where competition becomes everything, they were told students should enjoy themselves.

The memo stated, “The purpose of the day is for our school to get together for an enjoyable two hours of activities and provide an opportunity for students, teachers and parents to interact cooperatively.  Since we believe that all of our students are winners, the need for athletic ability and competitive “urge to win” will be kept to a minimum.  The real reward will be the enjoyment and good feelings of participation.”

One parent commented, “I am speechless…the ‘urge to win’ will be kept at a minimum. What are we teaching our children? Everyone isn’t a winner, there are winners and losers. The kids that win and get awards drive those that don’t to do better.”

Conservative blog Progressives Today went so far as to call it “cultural Marxism.”

Are all the children going to hold hands as they cross the finish line together? Will they all get a trophy and medal because they all finished in first place? Is that the progressive value being taught in government schools today?

Tragically, the answer is yes.

Republicans simply cannot see the benefit of working together with anybody for anything.  While we thought this was strictly political, apparently their loathing for camaraderie and sportsmanship even extends to their children’s activities.

There is nothing at stake with the North Hill field day.  There is no championship title, no school rivalry.  It is simply a fun day in the sun.  And, apparently, it is yet another chance for Republicans to blame President Obama for something that has absolutely nothing to do with him.

Bans on Discussion of Homosexuality in UK Schools on the Rise

Delegates at the UK’s Union of Teachers annual conference this week reported a growing number of schools have begun introducing bans on the promotion or positive portrayal of homosexuality.

The wording of many of these bans apparently mirrors that of Section 28 - the controversial clause introduced under the Thatcher Government in the late 1980s.

The Independent reports:

Deborah Glynn, from St Helens, Lancashire, cited research by the British Humanist Association to the conference which, she said, showed that there are many schools bringing this wording back into their policies.

"A lot are fundamentalist groups - mainly Christian," she said.

She said she had worked in one academy which had done this, but which had subsequently withdrawn the words after negotiations.

A number of schools cited in the BHA research did withdraw the wording after it was pointed out to them. They said they had severely inherited the words of previous agreements, and not realised until it was pointed out to them what they had done.

"All schools can draw up their own sex education policy but they must ensure they do not discriminate unfairly on grounds of sexual orientation,” a Department of Education spokesman said. “Our sex and relationship education guidance makes it clear that schools should not promote any sexual orientation.”

Keep Religion Out Of Science Education And Debates

A few years ago, Texas was the center of a nutty battle over rewriting science and history to include a clearly Christian worldview in its textbooks intended for public school students. Although the state’s textbook reviewers requested that publishers include creationism–yes, you read that right–in its science curriculum, ultimately, publishers declined to do so. Chagrined creationists bemoaned this steadfast adherence to including only science in science textbooks for our nation’s schoolchildren. According to the Dallas News:

Stephen Meyer, a Discovery Institute scholar who has advised the Texas board, said the new books “will leave students in the dark about contemporary mainstream scientific controversies over Darwinian evolution. Unfortunately, because Texas is a major purchaser of textbooks, the board’s action may have an adverse impact on science education across America for years to come,” he said.

The Discovery Institute is a creationist front group that uses marketing and faux scientific controversies (“teach the controversy“) to try to force the (Christian) creationist worldview into public school education. Their infamous “wedge strategy” seems to have failed on the textbook front for now, but that hasn’t stopped creationist activists from sabotaging science through other methods. Their latest choice of Trojan Horse is public charter schools.

In an alarming revelation, as Zack Kopplin writes at Slate, public charter schools in Texas and Arkansas are doing an end-run around that whole “separation of church and state” thing and implementing a creationist-backed ‘science curriculum’, all using taxpayer dollars. The company responsible, ResponsiveEd, has a deep relationship with creationism. According to Jonny Scaramanga, writing at Salon:

It emerged that ResponsiveEd was founded by Donald R. Howard, former owner of ACE (Accelerated Christian Education). ACE is a fundamentalist curriculum that teaches young-Earth creationism as fact. Last year it hit headlines because one of its high school science books taught that the Loch Ness Monster was real, and that this was evidence against evolution.

Lest anyone fail to understand that this kind of willful instruction in fantasy is harmful, ResponsiveEd even incorporates misinformation that steps directly into the public health domain. According to Kopplin:

Responsive Ed’s butchering of evolution isn’t the only part of its science curriculum that deserves an F; it also misinforms students about vaccines and mauls the scientific method. The only study linking vaccines to autism was exposed as a fraud and has been retracted, and the relationship has been studied exhaustively and found to be nonexistent. But a Responsive Ed workbook teaches, “We do not know for sure whether vaccines increase a child’s chance of getting autism, but we can conclude that more research needs to be done.”

Fifteen years of damage done, and this charter school network is teaching children at dozens of schools in Texas and Arkansas that the jury is still out on vaccines and autism, indoctrinating a new generation in the misinformation and fear surrounding both. The thread that connects government mistrust, vaccine resistance, fear, and religion is a tangled one, but it’s also very real. Teaching students to rely on belief rather than on evidence and results from testable hypotheses does them–and public health–no favors.

And it’s not only children attending publicly funded charter schools in Texas and Arkansas getting the short end of this educational stick. Your taxpayer dollars are paying for a lot of schoolchildren to learn creationist dogma. And they’re scattered all over the country.

I’ve taught students in my university classes who come from educational backgrounds like this. Students who don’t “believe” in evolution, having been taught that somehow, learning about the processes of nature is a threat to their religious beliefs. This mal-education sets them back academically and leaves them playing catch-up with some fundamentals of the field. That’s a failure of our system, one that is reflected in the public’s perception of how we do science and how to interpret it. Casting religion and science as a matter of public debate and spectacle doesn’t help reduce the perception of some that science exists solely as a challenge to their faith and therefore as something to resist or find inherently offensive.

In reality, obviously, science is something we should all embrace. We study the natural world so that we can understand it and often, use it to our presumed advantage. Tracing the path of this understanding nourishes important analysis and critical thinking skills, grounded in an evidence base and the concept of testable hypotheses, questions you can ask that experimental results can answer. Treating what lies beyond the natural world as having a place at the table in science education is just as false as casting the two as head-to-head adversaries.

In our multicultural democracy, no one conception of faith, spirituality, or belief has right-of-way in taxpayer-funded education. And when our students learn about how the natural world works, the only concepts that should have the right-of-way are evidence-based findings, established theories and laws, and testable hypotheses. If people don’t learn that testability and evidence are essential features of science, they won’t understand whether it’s science they’re being sold because they won’t have a good understanding of what science is.

Creationism again stalks the classroom

In a sane world, the ringing denunciation of intelligent design and creationist "science" delivered by a federal judge in 2005 would have eradicated these concepts from the schoolroom.

District Judge John E. Jones III of Harrisburg, Pa., ruled then that "intelligent design" is not science, "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," and therefore is unconstitutional as a subject to be taught in a public school.

Yet the creationists keep at it. A recent report, written for Slate.com by the indefatigable and implausibly youthful Zack Kopplin, involves a network of charter schools with an enrollment of 17,000 students in Texas, Arkansas, and Indiana and an incredible haul of $82.6 million a year in state, local and federal funds. 

As Kopplin reports, the biology workbook assigned to students in the schools operated by Responsive Education Solutions is shot through with creationist propaganda. Among its assertions: "Evolution — which is, after all, an unproved theory — has been treated as fact. It has reached the level of dogma, widely accepted, but unproven and changing school of thought that is treated as though it were fact."

Its section on "The Origin of Life" asserts: "There are only two ways that life could have begun: "1 - Spontaneous generation - random chemical processes formed the first cell. 2 - Supernatural intervention created the first cell."

As for the first living cell, the text blithers on, scientists "can only hypothesize what it might have been like." Thus it craftily attempts to undermine the scientific method. On the other hand, it says, "for many, supernatural creation (either by God or some other supernatural power) of the first cell is a more plausible explanation."

A “Buddy Bench” Makes Recess More Inclusive

For many elementary students, recess can be a highlight of the school day. A chance to run and play after hours of sitting still behind a desk.

But it can also be an isolating experience for students who feel left out.

At Roundtown Elementary School in York, PA one 2nd grader is doing his part to make sure all students are included in the fun.

With his family considering a temporary move to Germany, Christian began researching German schools. That’s when he noticed that one German school had a “buddy bench” for students who felt lonely or excluded during recess.

With this idea in mind he took action to support the students at his school who he noticed were being left out recess. He went to his principal and got a “buddy bench” at his school.

Now when students feel alone or excluded they can go to the bench where they’ll be invited by other students to talk or play.

This “buddy bench” allows more students to share in the joys of recess.

But just as importantly, it helps create a school culture of caring and inclusion. It challenges students to support their fellow classmates and empowers them to be a part of the solution.

As Christian puts it, “we show we care about others when we ask others to play.”

Christian and the “buddy bench” teach us a lot about what it takes to make schools more safe and welcoming for all students.

Christian exemplifies the power of upstanders willing to take action when they see students being excluded or teased.

In order to become upstanders, students need to know there are many ways to constructively support a classmate who is being bullied or teased. Options include talking to an adult when they see a student being teased, speaking up in the moment, supporting a student who has been bullied and causing a distraction in the moment that takes the attention away from a student who is being targeted.

Little Civil Rights Pioneer Reunites With US Marshal Who Protected Her

In November 1960, when Ruby Bridges became the first African-American student to integrate a white Louisiana elementary school, Charles Burks was one of four federal marshals who escorted her to William Frantz Elementary School as an angry crowd stood outside.

Bridges, who is now 58, reunited Thursday with Burks, 91, for a special conversation about the historic moment, which was filmed for The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis permanent exhibit called “The Power of Children.” Burks is the only marshal who is still alive.

She told Burks:

Thank you Charlie for doing what was right at a time when it might not have been the easiest thing to do.

Burks said escorting Bridges to school was a highlight of his life, adding that he supported the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that struck down segregation in public schools. Bridges was in first-grade when she started attending William Frantz Elementary School on Nov. 14, 1960, as the court-ordered integration of public schools began in New Orleans.

It was a privilege to be able to do what I did, even though it was one of my duties. Everybody says it was just another job to do, but it was a wonderful job.

Bridges said she didn’t realize at the time the role she was playing in helping end segregation because her parents had not explained everything that was happening. She thought the loud crowds that gathered daily outside the school were taking part some sort of parade, such as Mardis Gras, and they didn’t frighten her.

Burks and the other marshals escorted the young Bridges to and from school for several weeks before local police took over that duty. Eventually the crowds dispersed and she no longer needed protection.

Bridges said was happy she got to meet again with Burks to discuss their shared experience and record their memories for the museum’s exhibit, which also highlights the lives of Anne Frank and Ryan White.

She said she hopes the exhibit can help children understand both U.S. history and the civil rights movement’s victories and the work that still remains to overcome the nation’s legacy of racism.

Fox News guest: ‘That’s a teaching moment’ when hungry kids can’t eat school lunch, not punishment

Raw Story reports:

During a segment on Fox & Friends, therapist and school counselor Thomas Kersting told host Gretchen Carlson that he approved of a New Jersey school district’s plan to reportedly “throw the meal away” if kids didn’t have enough money to pay for lunch.

“I agree with the superintendent,” he said. “I think it’s a little harsh. You know, I don’t think they’re going to throw the food out right in front of the kid and embarrass the kid.”

Gretchen Carlson asked Kersting if he “had a problem with the fact that the kids ultimately end up being punished in this situation when it really is the parents’ fault.”

Kersting explained, “Again, I think it is misleading that the kids are going to be punished. We have more food than any other nation. You know, no kid is going to starve. You know, if one day a kid doesn’t have lunch, right, maybe that’s a teaching moment when that kid doesn’t have lunch. That may sound harsh saying that, but we’ve got to get people to start being responsible for themselves.”

Watch courtesy of Raw Story: