IB Program or International Bull

Well the Danville Public Schools are at it again. Not satisfied with consuming millions of dollars on “magnet schools” they are again grazing at the federal trough. (When asked they are quick to note that federal grants are not “city money” but “federal money.” Hmmm and federal money comes from where? Yes, you guessed it -tax money!) This time its fishing for more “IB” money. This is the International Baccalaureate program originally developed for Galileo, Schoolfield, and Westwood. The official website describes IB: “The International Baccalaureate Program is governed by the International Baccalaureate Organization in Geneva, Switzerland and administered by the International Baccalaureate Curriculum and Assessment Center in Cardiff, Wales. The organization originated over thirty years ago in Europe as an effort by international schools to assure quality educational standards for students, regardless of where they lived. Today, the organization uses the talents of educators around the world to continuously update curriculum, train teachers, assess student work, and evaluate the program.” UNESCO, the United Nations’ primary agency dealing with universal education, helped set up and fund the International Baccalaureate Organization (“IBO”) in Geneva, Switzerland in 1968. Danville, drooling over those grant dollars, now wants to expand it to Forest Hills School. Why Forest Hills? Because it’s the best little private school at public expense they have! When the “open enrollment” concept was eliminated almost three years ago students were steered back to their home schools. All except Forest Hills. Why again? Forest Hills has traditionally been the school where the elite of Danville put their children. The school at one time was nearly 60% opt in students. Statistically Forest Hills should have been closed years ago. A dwindling elementary population in the Forest Hills area and an aging land locked facility should have had any school board member with kahunas calling for its closure but that would have been comparable to streaking naked through the Wednesday Club. In other words, it wasn’t going to happen. Averett has been foaming at the mouth for the land but we will all be dead and embalmed before that school ever closes even though it has one of the highest costs per student in the district. Enough on economics. The fact is it’s the home of the upper crust and thus an “international” program would give the parents something else to brag about at the Danville Country Club. So the evil generals assembled at the concrete palace and plotted the assault on the American taxpayer. But hold on, has the IB program been a success? No mind! Tax money is just over the horizon! Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead! Let no one stand in the way. The education pigs are elbowing for room at the trough. (Lets ignore the fact that the budget for technology in the schools has continually declined over the past three years). The Gregorian monks who are housed in the basement straining in candlelight writing grants with quill pens must have work. Well in fact the IB program has been an udder failure though again no gueen from the concrete palace would ever admit to that. The real facts are that it never caught on and only a handful of students have ever worked their way through the program. On top of that the program is coming under increasing criticism for its anti-American slant. Anti-American? How could that be? Critics have argued that IB's multicultural themes promote values that conflict with traditional Judeo-Christian values. Some opponents have called it Marxist because the International Baccalaureate Organization is a signatory to the Earth Charter, a collection of global principles created in France in 2000. Under the mantles of “sustainable development” and “social justice,” the Earth Charter’s authors want it to become part of binding international law to control population growth, force a slowdown of economic activity in the industrialized nations, and divert a massive amount of wealth from successful economies to failed ones by UN fiat. This is old-fashioned global socialism by a different name. The idea, according to IBO’s mission statement, is to build “intercultural understanding and respect” among “compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” That would be fine enough if countries like Iran were dedicated to the same principle of intercultural understanding. But in the eyes of UNESCO and the International Baccalaureate Organization, we are the ones who must do more of the multicultural outreach than our mortal enemies determined to destroy us. IB's curriculum, instruction and assessment can be expensive, though, running into the tens of thousands of dollars. That cost, and the idea of giving up local control of school curriculum, upsets some school board members across the nation. IB programs can cost up to six times the cost of Advanced Placement programs. IB is coming under increased scrutiny across the country, largely because it is being expanded through additional federal grant money. A recurring criticism concerns IB's promotion of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Critics point out that students are not taught nor is the public informed that Article 29 of that UN document puts the United Nations in authority over individual rights -- unlike America's founding documents, which describe individual rights as "inalienable." Article 29 states: "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." Many may argue that we must become more aware of our world community. That’s true, the US cannot become an isolationist society. But they also don’t need to become a socialist haven either. Students have the right to understand that our form of government, while it may have its problems, is not all bad. Why are so many people trying to sneak in if its such an evil place? While the pros and cons of the program can be argued the fact remains for Danville that it isn’t working. We do not need to throw more money at it to make it work either. Someone needs to shake up the concrete palace or the next tax fueled school trip will be to Geneva. Oink.

Uranium Madness

It’s amazing how bizarre the discussion has gotten concerning uranium mining in Pittsylvania County. Isn’t it interesting that most of the complaints are coming from Halifax County? If they want a chemical trespass ordinance it may affect their top cash industries of pot growing and moonshine. I’m all for discussions of a subject however the opponents don’t even want you talking about it! Let’s get to the facts of the matter. The “chicken littles” of the radical NIMBA’s (Not In My Back Yard) want everyone to believe that their word is correct and everyone else is wrong. They are the same ones that get up each morning, take a hot shower, brush their teeth with an electric toothbrush, cook breakfast on an electric stove, then get into their SUV to go to a meeting to protest producing power. How hypocritical! Until more practical sources of power become available we are faced with just a few viable options to produce affordable power. To ignore the use of nuclear power as a way to free the US from the grip of radical oil bandits is ridiculous. The deaths associated with fossil fuel plants is many times the number that can be connected to nuclear power. A distinguished team of researchers from MIT and Harvard released a report that has been described as the most comprehensive, interdisciplinary study ever conducted of nuclear energy maintains that “The nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power.” The report further states: "Fossil fuel-based electricity is projected to account for more than 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. In the U.S. 90% of the carbon emissions from electricity generation come from coal-fired generation, even though this accounts for only 52% of the electricity produced. Taking nuclear power off the table as a viable alternative will prevent the global community from achieving long-term gains in the control of carbon dioxide emissions." Can it be mined safely? If the NIMBA’ s have their way we will never know. Let’s at least study it for Christ’s sake. Stop acting like the chicken littles who believed the world was flat. Only by education can we all make intelligent decisions. So just sit back and let the Halifax Hystericals stick to cleaning up their own county before they take aim on Pittsylvania. The future is in your light switch.

Danville, City of the Lost

Danville has the unique ability to turn molehills into mountains and creating boogie men where they don’t exist. On the other hand they tend to take real important issues and sweep them under the rug with the broom of apathy. Several issues locally have brought this issue more to light. An issue “swept under the rug” is the fact that two more experienced administrators from the Danville Public Schools have “put in their papers” to retire. Not a peep from the school board about this epidemic and of course the local fish wrap masquerading as a paper doesn’t know a thing about it. Well when you fire all the good people at the paper, make reporters hourly employees, and turn the printing of the paper over to a facility hundreds of miles from Danville then I say you have a problem. The only way the paper would get a real story was if it ran into their building. Then again if it was after five o’clock they would miss that also. Enough about them. The loss of experienced administrators is just the tip of the iceberg with DPS. The average experience level of a DPS school administrator is just under four years. Most of us have shoes older then most administrators. Why is this important? Danville was once a proud district with well known administrators known around the state and the nation. Several former administrators traveled throughout the country lecturing and presenting to a multitude of school officials. That was when DPS was a respected organization. Now, it is joke among other districts. A tyrannical leadership, a fast and free budget, and a school board that have their collective heads so far in the sands that they may strike oil. The flagship high school GW, is just a mere shadow of its former grandness. It has been reduced to an “expulsion” academy with students “eliminated” from the population for minor infractions. Pretty soon the custodians will outnumber the students. The many trophies in the front office ought to be turned around so they would not have to witness the demise of a once great institution. Continuing the saga of “The Rise and Fall of DPS” is the former flavor of the day, Galileo. This experiment was like Madame Curie’s experience with radiation. Her work was important but she died from radiation poisoning. The same is true for Galileo. It was built up so much that it is dying from its own trumped up success. The downtown administration was always so quick to throw up Galileo to the press as the “golden child” that they started to believe their own hype. But with all false idols the covering of gold covered a lead base. Just scratch the surface a little and you find out what it really is. It was marketed as a “super academy” but in fact was merely a way parents tried to have a private school at public cost. The cost per child is almost three times the district average yet the results are not worth the cost. Galileo’s IB (International Baccalaureate) program never really got off the ground. Students never bought into the program and it has fallen by the wayside. The promised space age technology never materialized as is evident by the specially designed virtual reality lab. What is it used for now? It is a storeroom for textbooks. The rush and overtime expense of the new chemistry/physics lab was all for naught also. The lab was months behind schedule, way over budget, and still not completed. But what else is new? Has anything in the district been on time, on budget, or sensible in the last four years? So as the people in Danville worry about uranium mining like Chicken Little, something is going on right under their noses and no one seems to care. It they did there would be lines of people getting petitions to run for the school board. But there aren’t. And so it goes in Gotham, not even the Bat Signal from the roof of the municipal building would help. Now a Bat Signal from the new school board digs would be something. Unfortunately it would probably be late and over budget.