The Urban Grind

The Los Angeles Unified School District has decided that giving out homework assignments is too much of a burden for its mostly low income minority students. Their new policy is that homework can only count for 10% of a student’s grade.

Vanessa Perez was a homework scofflaw. The Marshall High School senior didn’t finish all of it — largely because she worked 24 hours a week at a Subway sandwich shop.

Alvaro Ramirez, a junior at the Santee Education Complex, doesn’t have his own room and his mother baby-sits young children at night. “They’re always there and they’re always loud,” he said, explaining his challenges with homework.

Haven’t these kids ever heard of libraries?

The nation’s second-largest school system has decided to give students like these a break. A new policy decrees that homework can count for only 10% of a student’s grade.

Never mind that many teachers object to this new policy, the L.A Unified School District doesn’t care.

But Los Angeles Unified is pressing forward, joining a growing list of school districts across the country that are taking on homework — including Fontana and Pleasanton, N.J. In many districts, limits are being placed on the amount of homework so students can spend more time with their families or pursue extracurricular activities like sports or hobbies. The competition to get into top colleges has left students anxious and exhausted, with little free time, parents complain.

Exactly what competition to get into top colleges are they talking about? Judging by the disdain these kids have for homework, any college that admits them would most likely be on the basis of affirmative action. Also, since when are hobbies more important than doing well in school? And shouldn’t these parents be happy that their kids are (supposedly) working hard to try and get into schools?

Anyway, moving on…

According to the new policy, “Varying degrees of access to academic support at home, for whatever reason, should not penalize a student so severely that it prevents the student from passing a class, nor should it inflate the grade.” It was distributed to schools last month.

Veronica Castro, a Santee junior, cooks and cleans for her family. She also shares a room with her sister, who likes to watch television. Another TV blares in the living room next door: “Sometimes homework is the last thing I have to do instead of the first.”

Again, whatever happened to the good old library?

Santee science teacher Cesar Alcaraz said he already takes students’ home environments into consideration and hopes the policy will curb poor homework practices by teachers.

Homework should not be used to punish or reward; grades should be based on learning so that it “accurately represents what a student knows and is able to do,” the policy says. Grades should not be based on how students attain knowledge “nor [on] their behavior, attitude, effort or attendance.”

Uh, helloooo! How is the teacher to determine how well students are learning without homework?

I think the real reason the administrators are doing this is not to have the little darlings mutiny against their teachers.

Compliance is already a problem. In non-honors classes, teachers said they were fortunate if 50% of students did their homework.

Here’s what some of the students who seem to have little interest in learning, have to say about doing homework:

“By the time I got to that assignment, at 2 in the morning, I found it irrelevant, tedious and not worth doing,” said junior Israel Hipolito. “I got high scores on tests but a lower grade because of the coloring assignment.”

{snip}

“I do my homework, but I don’t do it too often,” said Marshall junior Lexus Bailey, whose schedule includes honors classes. “I’ll tell myself I’m going to do my homework, then I don’t.”

{snip}

“It’s a waste of time and a poor reflection of whether I’m learning the subject,” said Marshall senior Manny Hernandez, who is developing his own janitorial business outside of school hours. “And it’s so easy to copy other students’ homework, it’s ridiculous.”

Eleven year old Frankie Girard was in art class drawing a picture of the American flag, which he wanted to hang up on on the wall. However, his teacher wouldn’t allow it. When asked if he could put the flag picture on his desk, the teacher still said no, because it would offend one of his classmates.

On the other hand, the school superintendent said the reason was because young Frankie was supposed to be doing something else. (These people should really get their stories straight.) Now if Frankie was supposed to be doing something else, why couldn’t the teacher have just let him tape the picture on his desk and get back to his assignment? I think the real issue was the other classmate.

Quite frankly, I don’t understand these people who come to America, and who make use of our public schools, along with other tax payer funded benefits, and who then have the nerve to complain about an American flag being offensive. (And I’m sure I must sound like a broken record by now.) If these brats and their families are so offended by our flag, they should get the hell out of this country. What that mealy mouthed teacher should have said to that kid who was offended was

“Listen kid. You’re getting a good education courtesy of American taxpayers and a much better standard of living than in your old country. So either shut your trap. Or get the hell out of here.”

In this case, the boy was told by a campus security guard to remove the flags. Her reasoning was as follows:

“She said I should take my flags down. She said this is a school that focuses on diversity and she doesn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable,” Stoppel told KMGH-TV. “How do you suppose anyone would feel uncomfortable in America with an American flag? That’s where I’m confused.”

First off, this sow should be fired immediately.

Secondly, if illegal aliens, their anchor brats, or the so-called moderate Muslims are so offended by the American flag while getting public education (courtesy of us gringos), they should get the fuck out this country and go back to the shit-holes they came from. (Pardon my French.) Of course that would never happen, since these ingrates have it much better here than where they came from. But just a thought…

Do you all remember Dhaba “Debbie” Almontaser? She was the founder of the Brooklyn based Khalil Gibran Academy, New York City’s first English-Arabic public school. Just to refresh your memory, she was ousted over the “Intifada NYC” t-shirt controversy.

The principal had come under fire for comments she made to The New York Post about an “Intifada NYC” T-shirt that is sold by an activist group which shares an office with the Yemeni-American association that Almontaser represents.

The day before she condemned the T-shirt message’s connection to Palestinian terrorism, Almontaser told the Post that “intifada” meant “shaking off” and the shirts represented women “shaking off” oppression.

Yeah right, lady!

The comments infuriated the city’s United Federation of Teachers president, Randi Weingarten, who called the message “war-mongering.”

“That’s something that ought to be denounced, not be explained away,” she told the paper.

For once, I agree with Randi Weingarten. By definition, Intifada is all about fifth columnist fakestinian squatters waging low level war against Israeli civilians through suicide bombings. The same can be said of the immigrant “youths” in the Paris suburbs. Also, who is this woman to talk about oppression of women when her co-religionists kill young women for not accepting arranged marriages or for otherwise ruining their family’s honor? Give me a break.

But anyway, I digress.

Those dhimmis at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in favor of Ms. Almontaser. They’re basically saying that her firing was “discrimination.”

In other words, firing a hostile minority woman who supports an Intifada is bad because it violates one of liberalism’s main commandments. “Thou shall not discriminate or treat minorities differently, especially if they complain about their host country.”

Now just in case you’re thinking that what I wrote was nothing more than the rantings of a crazy woman, check out Ms. Almontaser’s interview with the Norwegian branch of Amnesty International.

- President Bush is trying to destroy the United States that I love and of which I am a result. He has abandoned our forefather’s ideals of a society of freedom; democracy and pluralism build by immigrants. He is a nightmare.

{snip}

- I would love to see a peace-loving country as Norway calling the USA to the carpet, telling that enough is enough. I would like to see Norway taking the risk demanding that USA stops the killings, spreading suffering, emergency and fear in countries as Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela and Sudan, she says. – I would like to see Norway show its guts in the Security Council and protest against unfair and racist policies. Stop the sanctions against Iraq; can’t you see that it is the civil population that suffers?

Peace loving country, my foot. More like a fakestinian terror loving country.

-Why do you think terrorists attacked the USA?

- A year ago I could not answer such a question. To me it was just impossible to comprehend how someone could do such terrible, totally sick atrocities. Many said they were not surprised that terrorists attacked the US. That hurt me deeply. Today I believe that the terrorist attacks can have been triggered by the way the USA breaks its promises with countries across the world, especially in the Middle East and the fact that it has not been a fair mediator with its foreign policy. It is not true that the people in the Middle East and Southeast Asia hate our lifestyle, our freedom and our democracy. What disturbs them is that we in order to secure our own well being, deprive them of the possibility of achieving the same high living standard and freedom of choice that we have in the western world. Terror is the last resource of a desperate and oppressed people, but that does not mean that it is acceptable. People who do terrorist acts have lost the sense of right and wrong, each individual committing such acts should be punished with the maximum extent of the law. Only Allah is entitled to take lives.

Notice that last sentence. Does she believe that terrorists who blow up pizzerias and night clubs in Israel lost their sense of right and wrong? I doubt it. I’m sure she would most like say “Well yes, BUT… Always pay attention to what people say after the word “but.”

Update:

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs is on this as well. She has more on Debbie Almontaser’s background.

Almontaser has called America a racist country.

· She has said that the U.S. brought the 9/11 attack upon itself.
· She opposes the War on Terror.
· She supports numerous radical organizations, including the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Trial for terrorist financing, where CAIR’s relationship to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, has been repeatedly argued by the prosecution.
· She accepted an annual award from CAIR in 2005.
· She is on the board of the Muslim Consultative Network, whose members include unindicted co-conspirator CAIR and the radical Islamic Circle of North America. The Muslim Consultative Network is a major sponsor of the Almontaser Reinstatement Effort.
· Has been a spokesperson for the Muslim American Society for a NYC 9/11 event.
· Refused to answer a NY Sun reporter as to whether or not Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations
· Refused to say that the Intifada was a Palestinian terror campaign against innocent Israeli civilians, children, women, and men.
· Dabah has appointed radical Imams to her schools Board of Advisors.

We already know that Obama wants to gut our military and make nice with all the dictators of the world instead. But Obama also has a soft spot for domestic criminals, especially if they’re minorities.

One of the first things Obama would do as president is repeal mandatory minimum sentences for crack and other drug offenders to “reduce the ineffective warehousing” of such criminals, according to his website. He favors “drug rehabilitation” over incarceration for even “a second-time offender,” according to a 2007 interview he gave to the Michigan Chronicle, Detroit’s second-largest African-American newspaper.

Decriminalizing pot is also on the table. “We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws,” said Obama, who admits to smoking weed and doing “a little blow” as a young man.

As an Illinois state senator, Obama voted to weaken penalties on gangbangers who deal drugs in schools.

He also wants to rehabilitate inmates through prison-to-work programs. Obama’s pet charity, ACORN, has such a program. It hired 59 inmates at its Las Vegas office this year. They proceeded to fraudulently register voters using the names of Dallas Cowboys football stars. A police affidavit quoted a supervisor describing them as “lazy crack-heads” who just wanted money for drugs.

ACORN and Obama have been working to restore voting rights for felons, which would be another priority of his administration. “At a minimum,” Obama told the black Detroit paper, “those who serve their sentences should be re-enfranchised.”

In Illinois, he unsuccessfully sponsored a measure to expunge some criminal records. He thinks they are used as a “stigma” against blacks.

Obama also wants to outlaw police use of racial descriptions as a means to capture suspects, including Middle-Eastern terrorists. As a U.S. senator, he’s already co-sponsored federal legislation to ban “racial profiling.”

At the same time, he wants to limit your right to protect yourself from criminals by permanently banning assault weapons, among other gun-control measures to de-”cling” you from your guns.

As a state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on the sale and transfer of all forms of semi-automatic firearms, along with a bill limiting handgun purchases to one a month. In a 1996 questionnaire supplied by a liberal Chicago nonprofit group, he answered “yes” to supporting legislation to “ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.”

Obama fought a bill in the Illinois senate that would send youth who commit a second violent felony to prison. He fought to keep even the most violent juvenile offenders out of the adult system.

Instead, “We must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime,” he said at the Denver convention. One ladder he has in mind is funding contractors who train “ex-felons on projects that can benefit the community as a whole: insulating homes and offices to make them energy-efficient, perhaps.”

Terrorists could also catch a break. “I would vote to repeal the U.S. Patriot Act,” he said in 2003. Now he says he would merely repeal the parts of it that are “just plain wrong,” whatever those are.

Obama, who would as president have the power to pardon criminals, isn’t a big fan of U.S. laws in general, at least not as currently written. He thinks they are racist, along with the courts.

“We have certain sentences that are based less on the kind of crime you commit than on what you look like,” he told Howard University students last year. “It’s time to seek a new dawn of justice.”

“Laws are sometimes malleable,” he wrote two years ago, and he plans to “fix” what he sees as a “broken” criminal justice system. And he favors judges with the “empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American.”

That worries some legal analysts. “If Obama wins,” warns Northwestern University law professor Steven Calabresi, “we could possibly see the abolition of capital punishment and mass freeing of criminal defendants.”

In fact, Obama in the 1996 questionnaire responded “no” to supporting capital punishment. His website now calls for unspecified “reform” of the death penalty, which he contended in his book “does little to deter crime.”

Obama will, however, get tough on “hate crimes.” He plans to pack the criminal section of Justice’s Civil Rights Division with African-American prosecutors, and make “hate crime a priority.”

He will “reinvigorate federal civil-rights enforcement” by prosecuting alleged civil-rights abuses by local officials, such as the Jena, La., district attorney. “As president,” his website says, “Obama will ensure that the section vigorously pursues such cases.”

Now can someone please explain to me how exactly a person “falls into” a life of crime? Is there someone going around threatening to kill the families of all these young men if they don’t rob, rape, maim or kill? Whatever happened to free will, which all human beings possess? How about staying in school, getting a job, working hard, and keeping your pants zipped up?

Why haven’t McCain and Palin gone after Obama on this?

Find out some ways to artistically design a custom t shirt.

——————————————————————————————

An eleven year old fifth grader at the Aurora Frontier K-3 school was suspended for wearing an anti-Obama t-shirt. Here’s a picture of the shirt.

AURORA (MyFOXColorado.com) – An 11-year-old in Aurora says his first amendment rights are being trampled after he was suspended for wearing a homemade shirt that reads “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend.”

The fifth grader at Aurora Frontier K-8 School wore it on a day when students were asked to wear red, white and blue to show their patriotism.

Sounds like the boy did a great job of showing his patriotism. And what the shirt says is absolutely true. Obama refuses to put his hand on his heart for the national anthem. He’s chummy with Bill Ayres and his ugly wife. He’s backed by Ham-Ass. And he wants to negotiate with that Iranian monkey dictator Ahmadinejad without any pre-conditions.

The boy’s father Dann Dalton describes himself as a “proud conservative” who has taken part in some controversial anti-abortion protests. Dalton says the school made a major mistake by suspending his son for wearing the shirt.

“It’s the public school system,” Dalton says. “Let’s be honest, it’s full of liberal loons.”

G-d bless that father, and his son. He’s absolutely right about the liberal loons. If only there were more men in America like him.

According the the boy’s father, the school district told the student, Daxx Dalton, that he had the choice of changing his shirt, turning his shirt inside out or being suspended.

Daxx chose suspension.

“They’re taking away my right of freedom of speech,” he says. “If I have the right to wear this shirt I’m going to use it. And if the only way to use it is get suspended, then I’m going to get suspended.”

Daxx’s dad agrees with him and is encouraging his son to stand his ground. “The facts are his rights were violated. Period.”

Again, the father is absolutely right. Do any of you think for a minute that this boy would have been suspended for wearing a pro-Obama shirt? Or how about a “Bush Is Hitler” shirt?

Not in a million years!

It sounds like the school didn’t want any “pesky” student opposing their beloved Obama messiah.

Aurora Public Schools would not talk about the case but said the district “Respects a student’s right to free speech, such as the right to wear specific clothing,” but administrators say they review any situation that interrupts the learning environment.

Paperwork submitted by the school district says Daxx Dalton was not suspended for wearing the shirt, but for willful disobedience and defiance.

By interrupting the learning environment, I believe this bolshevik goon squad means that the boy’s shirt blatantly contrasted the leftist, multicultural, terrorists loving, America-hating, p.c. bullshit they constantly shove down the throats of those poor child captives.

The boy’s father says he intends to pursue a lawsuit against the district.

Nice try, but that’s not going far enough. Along with suing the district, the father should sue the school too. He should also sue the principal and the teacher PERSONALLY.

These people don’t belong anywhere near children. Let them flip burgers at McDonalds.

He is Congressman Eric Cantor representing Virginia’s 7th congressional district.

Aides to Mr McCain revealed that Mr Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives, had been asked to submit documents as part of a rigorous vetting process to hunt out any closet skeletons.

He joins a shortlist believed to include Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and Mr McCain’s bitter rival during the Republican primaries, Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota governor, and Rob Portman, a former Ohio congressman and budget director in the Bush administration.

Of the four, Mr Cantor would be by far the most exiting – though potentially risky – choice. A prodigious fundraiser with a young, photogenic family, support from evangelical Christians and strong backing from hard-line conservatives, he would shore up many of Mr McCain’s weaknesses.

Now I don’t know much about Eric Cantor. From what I’m reading so far, he seems like a nice solid conservative. And as much as I dislike McCain, I’ll still hold my nose and vote for him, as an Obama presidency would be a disaster for America and the rest of the world. But as a right wing Jew, (and here’s where I respectfully disagree with Pamela at Atlas Shrugs) I’m against having any Jewish person in such a high political position in America.

First off, I love America. It’s one of the best places (aside from Israel) for Jews to be. Unfortunately, I know, from my many online run-ins with white nationalists that anti-Semitism is still alive and well here. These people have told me flat out that they support Obama because they know he’ll be bad for Israel and the Jews. So imagine how much worse it is in the rest of the world. Any Jewish Vice President of the United States would have a major balancing act on his hands. Many people will assume that just because a person is an observant Jew, that he will be more loyal to Israel than to America. “Israel Firster” is a common expression used by Buchananites, and Ron Paultards to denigrate Jews who refuse to bend over and take in the rear from the goat fornicators and their domestic cheerleaders. (I think I’ll now refer to Buchanan as a “Germany Firster.”)

Therefore I think it’s safe to say that any Jewish Vice President would go out of his way to accomodate the moose-limbs and screw over Israel and other Jews just to show the world how “objective” he is, and how he’s “really” loyal to America.

Anyway, here’s more background on Cantor.

In the past, if a woman had a child out of wedlock, she was shunned and ostracized, which was the best form of birth control. And her child was put up for adoption. Nowadays, we teach children in kindergarden the mechanics of sex, yet wonder why rapists are getting younger, and the rate of illegitimacy keeps rising.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, if you want more of something, you have government subsidize it. And that is exactly what might happen at one Colorado high school .

Pregnant students in a Denver high school are asking for at least four weeks of maternity leave so they can heal, bond with their newborns and not be penalized with unexcused absences.

The request is unusual in Colorado’s public schools, where districts tend to deal with pregnant students or new moms with specialized programs or individualized education plans.

{snip}

Two counselors from East High School approached the school board last month, saying the policy at their school is unfair and inconsiderate because it forces new moms to return to school the day after being discharged from the hospital or face being charged with unexcused absences.

“My initial reaction is if we are punishing girls like that, that is unacceptable,” said Nicole Head, one of the counselors who brought the matter to the school board last month. “We’ve got to do something.”

What is with these psychological types who insist on excusing every form of bad, irresponsible behavior? Those girls *should* be punished for behaving like promiscuous bitches in heat. We should not be making things easy for them.

{snip}

School-board member Michelle Moss was baffled that schools were giving girls unexcused absences after birth.

“It’s critical that these young women have a chance to bond with their babies,” Moss said. “Maybe we do need a policy. Clearly, as a district, we have to look at what is going on with our young women. We’ve got to look at the birth-control issues and teen pregnancy and how we best help them deal with it and still graduate.”

Are there any adults working at that school that have brains larger than a walnut?

What is going on is that these girls prefer the immediate gratification of having some guy’s cock inside of them, rather than hitting the books, which they most likely had no patience for to begin with. Telling them to keep their legs closed would be, GASP, forcing our morality down their throats.

Denver has one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the state. Of every 1,000 girls ages 15 to 17, 54.5 will become pregnant in the city, compared with 24.3 throughout Colorado, according to state health statistics.

This is exactly what liberals want — a large supply of people to whom they can promise welfare benefits at the expense of hardworking productive citizens, in exchange for votes.

The district has a school for pregnant teens and new moms, Florence Crittenton School, but it has a waiting list. Plus, many students want to remain at the school where they started, said Head, the counselor at East.

Why are we making teenage pregnancy into merely another lifestyle choice?!? If the lives of these girls turn out badly, it’s no one’s fault but their own. They will serve as an example of what NOT to do (for other girls), and perhaps their children will decide that they don’t want to grow up and be like Mommy.

Several districts have special schools with child-care services for new moms. Others have programs that allow students to receive high-school credit.

“When a girl tells us she is pregnant, we advise her to work one on one with her counselor and go from there to see what they can work out,” said Michelle Ancell, spokeswoman for Cherry Creek Schools.

“The counselor plays middleman between the principal and the student,” said Melissa Reeves of Jefferson County Schools, who added that the district has started a computer-based credit-recovery program that students can use during evening hours.

After reading this nonsense (so you guys don’t have to), I think these counselors should also be shunned and ostracized. After all, taxpayer dollars are spent to pay them. And look what Colorado’s citizens are getting in return.

{snip}

“If there are young mothers asking for maternity leave, the board should listen to them,” said Lori Casillas, executive director of the Colorado Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting, and Prevention. “If they think it is a barrier to graduation, the board should look at that.”

Her organization advocates that schools provide child-care services for new moms. Too many girls drop out after giving birth, and schools must do something to keep them, Casillas said.

Why should hardworking people, who work 80 hour weeks, and whose children study hard and get good grades be further taxed to accommodate irresponsible teenagers? Why doesn’t this woman’s organization pick up the tab?

Students at one high school in southern Colorado wanted to set up a child-care center, but the principal forbade it, saying it would encourage teen pregnancy, she said.

I guess there’s one public school employee with a brain larger than a walnut.

“There is no evidence that has ever happened,” Casillas said. “I don’t think schools have been proactive at creating policies that encourage young mothers to remain in school. Schools need to say, ‘What if you do come back, then what?’

Public schools cannot make smart people out of lazy, short sighted, irresponsible sluts. That’s where parents (who are married to each other), and religious organizations come into play.

This is all actually sad. It’s sad that there are nice, mature, educated married women out there who can’t have children. Yet these brainless bimbos pop out babies they can’t support, and expect taxpayers to subsidize their promiscuity.

Instead of taxpayer funded maternity leave, why not send these girls to convents and put their children up for adoption?

It’s bad enough that Mike Huckabee has a soft spot for terrorists, illegal aliens and rapists, now the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association is recommending that it’s Republican members vote for him in the upcoming Republican primary.

Does anyone need more proof that Huckabee is no conservative?

Black Muslim high school junior Ibrahim Mohamed, 17 took offense to the n-word repeatedly uttered throughout the book.

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS — A coalition of Metroplex activists is calling for Birdville schools to ban the classic 1884 novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn after a student said he was offended by a lesson plan centered on how to deal with the book’s use of the n-word.

{snip}

Junior Ibrahim Mohamed, 17, the only black student in the class, objected to the lesson, which consisted of having students talk about hurtful statements and what context can do to a word’s meaning. The Birdville school district provided the Word Magic lesson plan to the Star-Telegram.

{snip}

Coalition to Stop the N-Word

The members are the National Black United Front-Dallas, New Black Panther Party-Dallas, Nation of Islam-Dallas, Black Coalition to Maximize Education, NAACP-Dallas, Islamic Center of Irving, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-DFW), and Ron Price, a Dallas school board trustee, according to a Tuesday news release.

Are we also going to start banning books with the words wop and mic and shyster as well? Doubtful. This is just another example of people caving in to the demands of the R.P.O. crowd (the religion of the perpetually outraged).