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Saturday, October 26, 2013

Dear Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Your Libraries Will Soon Allow Porn Since Library Trustees Will Be Trained by the American Library Association to Violate the Law

Dear Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Virginia's public libraries will soon allow unlimited pornography despite the law since new Virginia library trustees will be intentionally trained by the American Library Association [ALA] to violate the law and allow porn.

Virginia library trustee training has been turned over to the ALA's "United for Libraries's Trustee Academy":


"The Trustee Academy will enhance the Library of Virginia's existing online tutorials for trustees and will assist the trustees of Virginia's public libraries in carrying out their duties and responsibilities," said Librarian of Virginia Sandra G. Treadway.
It is not an "enhancement" to teach the opposite of the law with the intention of misleading library trustees into allowing porn in local libraries throughout Virginia.  ALA's "Virginia Trustee Academy" teaches the very people responsible for setting policy in Virginia libraries the opposite of the law.

The US Supreme Court said in US v. ALA, 539 US 194 (2003), a public library is not an open public forum, surprisingly enough.  Because of that, the government has a right to apply reasonable controls, including software filters to block pornography.  Besides, the Court said, libraries have traditionally blocked porn from book collections, so using software filters to achieve the same effect on the Internet makes no difference.  The case applies to all libraries, not just those obtaining federal funding.  All libraries may legally block porn, whether or not they accept federal funding.

The "Virginia Trustee Academy" teaches the exact opposite, that porn may not be blocked because libraries are open public fora.  They are not.  By the way, in a subsequent case, porn need not be unblocked, even upon request:



So the training turns the very crux of the US v. ALA case on its head.  The newly indoctrinated library trustees then go back to their local libraries and apply the ALA's legally false diktat, thereby forcing communities to endure the typical harms unlimited porn brings.  You see, everyone assumes the library trustees must know what they are doing because they have been trained.  Perhaps, but not if they have intentionally received false training on the singularly key issue that pertains to community safety from the harms of porn in public libraries.  For details on this false training, see:



Governor McDonnell, I am offering my assistance to help you to counteract this insidious means of misleading and controlling local communities in Virginia.  And you'll have to do this because the Librarian of Virginia has already shown where her allegiance lies.  Naturally she will deny what I have said, but the issue of the safety of Virginia residents is too important so set aside so easily.

The person who created the training for the ALA is from New Jersey.  She has said libraries cannot block porn because that violates the First Amendment, even though the US Supreme Court said the exact opposite.  I'm from New Jersey too.  She has excused her porn pushing policies in local media by claiming that I have only written about a single incident in a New Jersey library and that I did not otherwise complain to the New Jersey Library Association that she leads.  So she has no excuse for defying the law and she chooses instead to attack the messenger.  This is the person who created the training that the ALA uses to indoctrinate your Virginia library trustee trainees, at least last I looked.  Is this what you want for Virginia?



Lastly, let me add that I am viewed as a "trusted source" on ALA misdirection by none other than the author of the Children's Internet Protection Act [CIPA].  CIPA requires filters in exchange for federal funding.  Please read this as it explains exactly how and why ALA misleads communities and what can be done about it:



So I am writing this message to warn that turning over library trustee training to the ALA will result in significant harm to communities throughout Virginia as a result of library trustees who have been intentionally misled into thinking blocking porn violates the First Amendment.

Sic semper tyrannis



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Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Massive Censorship as Common Core Kills the Mockingbird; Expect Silence from the American Library Association

Common Core censors out
To Kill a Mockingbird
Common Core.  The supposed nationwide standard for what children will learn in public school.  With respect to reading material, Common Core standardizes sexually inappropriate material.  Organizations like the American Library Association [ALA] need not work so hard to ensure children retain access to sexually inappropriate material.  Common Core will do that for them now:



Indeed, ALA supports the proliferation of Common Core:



But worse, way worse than standardizing sexualized books, is the massive censorship at the heart of Common Core.  To Kill a Mockingbird?  Gone.  The Great Gatsby?  Not so great.  "Squeezed off the syllabus."  From all schools.  Nationwide:


In Chris Kirchner's freshman English classes at Coral Reef Senior High School, novels like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Great Gatsby" have been squeezed off the syllabus to make room for nonfiction texts including "The Glass Castle" and "How to Re-Imagine the World."  For the first time, students will read only excerpts of classics like "The Odyssey" and "The House on Mango Street" instead of the entire book.


Under Common Core, classics such as "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" are of no more academic value than the pages of the Federal Register or the Federal Reserve archives -- or a pro-Obamacare opinion essay in The New Yorker.  Audio and video transcripts, along with "alternative literacies" that are more "relevant" to today's students (pop song lyrics, for example), are on par with Shakespeare.

English professor Mary Grabar describes Common Core training exercises that tell teachers "to read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address without emotion and without providing any historical context.  Common Core reduces all 'texts' to one level:  the Gettysburg Address to the EPA's Recommended Levels of Insulation."  Indeed, in my own research, I found one Common Core "exemplar" on teaching the Gettysburg Address that instructs educators to "refrain from giving background context or substantial instructional guidance at the outset."

Another exercise devised by Common Core promoters features the Gettysburg Address as a word cloud.  Yes, a word cloud.  Teachers use the jumble of letters, devoid of historical context and truths, to help students chart, decode and "deconstruct" Lincoln's speech.
In contrast, ALA opposes the "censorship" of To Kill a Mockingbird.  Here are just a few examples:



Think about this.  ALA supports Common Core but ostensibly opposes censorship, something Common Core now does on a massive scale.  So ALA rightly supports To Kill a Mockingbird while Common Core wrongly "squeezes it off the syllabus."

Will ALA now drop its support for Common Core?

I predict it will not, given its promotion of sexually inappropriate material for children is real and its opposition to censorship is only for show.  Here is just the latest example of ALA censorship and even blacklisting:



Hat tip to Diane Ravitch for making me aware of this massive Common Core censorship.  "Education reformer Diane Ravitch says that the standards have been adopted 'without any field test ... imposed on the children of this nation despite the fact that no one has any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools.'"

NOTE ADDED 17 OCTOBER 2013:

Updated a link to the correct link for the Sarah Carr story.

This just in, as another example of another national group addressing that odd case where a school "bans" reading material. And again I predict silence about Common Core's censorship of the very same book nationwide, this time from the NCAC:




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Tuesday, October 1, 2013

School iPad Disasters

iPorn on school iPads?
School iPad disasters are becoming more and more evident.  A Colorado school district advised the new Apple iOS7 upgrade wiped out all existing technology protection measures requiring the school to collect the iPads from students before they go home:
  • "Dear Mustang Parents," by Manitou Springs School District 14, 27 September 2013:
    Dear Mustang Parents,

    This correspondence is intended to provide information regarding the latest software upgrade for the student iPad devices.  Apple has provided IOS7 for its products, which appears to be an effective upgrade.  However, Apple did not realize that installing IOS7 would remove our (and thousands of organizations across the country) safety protection measure, which now makes the iPad devices unfiltered when accessing the internet away from school.  The Apple engineers are diligently working on a solution to this issue. In the short term, the district will be collecting iPad devices at the end of each day until the safety protection measure is reinstalled. iPad devices, while at school, will continue to be filtered through the district's server.

    Since this is a national (and potentially global) issue, we expect the problem to be resolved within a few days.  If you have any questions, you are certainly welcome to call....

    Thank you for your support.

    Manitou Springs School District 14

That sounds like a school iPad disaster to me, and I'm happy but sad to break that news.

Here's another, in California:
Oh boy, this is bad.


NOTE ADDED 4 OCTOBER 2013:

I have more breaking news on the MSSD14 situation.  iPads have been restored to the students.

Quoting one of my sources from yesterday:  "My school district, Manitou Springs Colorado MSSD 14, as of this day has apparently resolved the IOS 7 problem and has allowed students to take computers home today, presumably because the computers have restored operational content filter technology."

On the other hand, in Los Angeles, it goes from bad to worse.  Look at the LAUSD's superintendent's latest tweet touting how supposedly transformative are the iPads in a child's education:

In reality, good schools like those in South Korea, don't use iPads, at least not like LAUSD uses them:



Considering the current debacle, no wonder Superintendent Deasy has stopped tweeting to this point.

The girl pictured holding the iPad is adorable.  LAUSD's use of the iPad is not.

So just in case he gets embarrassed and deletes his latest tweet (27 Aug 2013), here's a graphic:




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