Clueless Elwood District Officials Double Down On Decision To Cancel Kindergarten Show

More educrats who ought to be forcibly removed from office and hit with a restraining order to stay away from anyone under the age of 18:

Elwood school officials Monday night stood behind the principal's decision to cancel a traditional Harley Avenue Primary School kindergarten event due to scheduling constraints.

"I believe we made the right decision for the right reason," Superintendent Peter Scordo said at a special meeting called to discuss the matter. He said he is trying to give students "the most instructional time as possible."

He said the children's performance, which involves a slide show and children's songs, is "not the best use of the limited time we have with our youngest learners" because of the instructional time lost to snow days this winter.

School officials said the show had to be canceled so that students could be given more instruction in the skills they'll need to be college and career-ready in the future.

Parents weren't buying it, including Ninette Solis:

"Our argument is simple...Our kids are 4 and 5 years old. What competitive advantage could you possibly give them by taking away a treasured part of their school experience?" 

The meeting drew about 100 parents and students, including some who attend the district's high school. About a dozen teachers attended the meeting. 

Several speakers criticized the decision, as well as the Common Core standards, saying those academic guidelines are partly responsible for administrators choosing to forfeit a popular arts project to preserve time for academics. 

Parent Becky Marcus said the administration appears to dismiss the value of what for many is a critical rite of passage. 

"There is value on it," she said. "You get to gain valuable skills. You gain life skills."

Of course students gain life skills by putting on the show, learning how to tap into their creativty, learning how to work together, and even learning that all-important Common Core skill, how to take direction.

But the educrats in charge would rather rote learning and test prep for the four and five year olds.

This is emblematic of the Common Core reform agenda - valuing a very, very narrow part of human skill and devaluing everything else.

Modern Feudal America

This is the future, folks:

A Los Angeles woman died in her cubicle at work last week, but her body wasn't discovered until the following day, local police said.

The body of Rebecca Wells, 51, was found slumped over on her desk by a security guard at the Los Angeles County Department of Internal Services on Saturday, L.A.'s KTLA-TV reported.

"I came in Saturday to do a little work, and I saw them when they were taking her out," co-worker Hattie Robertson told the station.

Police were not sure when or how Wells died, but said it was likely she died some time Friday.

Co-workers told detectives the last time they saw Wells was at around 9:00 a.m. on Friday morning, and police suspect that all of her colleagues left the office for the weekend without seeing her at her desk.

Wells went to USC and worked as a compliance auditor at department, co-workers told KTLA-TV. She had recently become a grandmother.

"She was always working. Always working," a co-worker told the station.

Medical examiners were working to establish a cause of death and do not suspect any foul play.

She was always working.

She literally died at work in her little cubicle.

No one noticed that she was dead for over 24 hours.

Got to love that kind of workplace where no one notices you're dead at your desk for over 24 hours.

This is the New Feudal Order crystallized - always working, work until you're dead, no one notices or cares that you're gone.

Just keep the other employees away while the coroner is doing his job and carting the body out.

I bet this story made Cathie Black smile.

She always says you have to move the "survivors" to another area of the building while the dead are being carted off to the morgue.

Bring Back Playtime

Here, here!

When I was a kid, we played tag, capture the flag, kick the can, army men, and cops and robbers.

Later, we played baseball in the street (can I tell you how many broken headlights we had in just a few years), football on the beach (trying running like Wesley Walker in sand!), frisbee in the water, "errors" in the backyard.

One year, my friend and I wrote a sequel to Rocky well before Rocky II came out. It wasn't very good, but boy, we had fun doing it.

When we did engage in "electronic things," we listened to albums.

I came remember the first year I started to listen to records. It was 1977 - I was in the fifth grade. My friend's older brother had records by Kansas, ELP, Jethro Tull and Yes. His other older brother was a disco fan and had records by Donna Summer, the Bee Gees (Jive Talkin'!) and others. We listened to all of them. My favorite were the comedy albums - Richard Pryor (Live in Concert), Steve Martin (Let's Get Small!), Robin Williams (Reality - What A Concept) and of course George Carlin (Toledo Window Box and Class Clown.)

I guess I'm getting old, but I feel nostalgic for those days.

There was so much less technology.

There felt like there was more humanity.

The standardized testing was kept to a minimum, playtime and naptime in kindergarten were still around, and we used to get milk and cookies for snacks. We had cigar boxes with the Dutch Masters on them to keep our crayons and glue and other art items in.

Can you imagine kids having such a thing now?

Were things really better in the seventies?

No - but there sure was more time for human interaction.

The days of computers, Blackberries, Iphones, and all the other technological gadgets you see people distracting themselves with have really put an end to so much of the authentic interaction between people.

Even the act of listening to music is so often an individual thing.

I can remember sitting around listening to Class Clown with my friends and everybody laughing.

Who does that anymore?

Everybody is watching their own show on their own personal device and laughing to themselves.

It's not the same.

So I hope this bringing back of playtime works.

We need more spontaneous, imaginative people in the world, and if adding play back into the lives of children can help develop those kinds of kids, that would be great.

Bloomberg's New York/Obama's America

This is horrific:

Dear Judy,

Please help. My daughter’s kindergarten is harmful. Kids are not allowed to play, except for a structured “choice time” at their desks, with a toy the group chooses. They get little to no recess time – less than 20 minutes. Sitting at desks for three and half to four hours per day is counter-productive and this schedule has turned my child off from school. What can I do to fix her situation?

Five year olds no longer allowed to play, mandated to do work.

When does the madness end?

When do the masses rise up and tar and feather the freaking people creating these policies?