Back to school: Let the indoctrination continue (with help from Jesse Jackson)

Things are back to normal in Wisconsin public schools: liberal teachers are back in the liberal government school classrooms promoting the liberal agenda to their students:

Madison schools will open Tuesday for the first time in a week, but it won't be just any other school day.

Civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson will greet East High School students over the loudspeaker in the morning. Students have made posters in support of their teachers. And classrooms are likely to be buzzing with discussion over the four-day teacher sick-out prompted by Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to limit collective bargaining.

With that backdrop, district officials have been preparing principals and staff for what could be a dramatic day.

"We know that there's a lot of emotion here and we need to recognize that there's a lot of upset (among teachers) and upset in the parent community as well," Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad said.

Just before classes start at East High School, Jackson plans to march from the corner of First and East Mifflin streets to the school parking lot for a rally.

Then Jackson, who spoke at the Capitol on Friday, will speak to East students over the public address system after the school bell rings. The idea is to both inspire students and welcome them back, principal Mary Kelley said.

An address from Jesse Jackson? I know the teachers are angry but must they take it out on the children?

"We could have done a big rally in the gym, but we've got to get kids in the classroom," Kelley said.

Riiiiiight.

With so many students attending the protest rallies on their own or with their parents, and after four missed school days, officials say the issue is certain to be on students' minds.

But district policy says teachers can't use their positions to "promote candidates or parties or activities," including protests. Nerad said principals will determine to what degree teachers will be allowed to discuss the matter in the classroom.

Peggy Coyne, a Black Hawk Middle School reading specialist and president-elect of Madison Teachers Inc., said she plans to ask students to write journal entries Tuesday about what they did while classes were canceled the last four days.

"me and my freinds we like went 2 the mall and then we like went 2 the rally and it was like realy cool cuz our teachers were thier like playing bongos and like holding up signes with like realy funny pictures of like this guy with a realy funny little mustash"

Coyne said teachers might also incorporate recent events into lessons about Wisconsin labor history. Some elementary school teachers have been told not to discuss the political events with younger children, she added.

"What teachers are good at is keeping it consistent and normal for children," she said.

Yup. The past week has really borne that out.

Linda Kostelyna, a stay-at-home mom with two children at Memorial High School, said she is concerned about whether teachers will discuss both sides of the budget debate if it's brought up in class, and that those discussions take place in the appropriate classes. 

Note to Linda: If you want your kids to hear "both sides" of anything, pull them out of school and teach them yourself. I can already tell you'd do a better job.

Don Johnson, superintendent of the Middleton-Cross Plains School District, said students and teachers were "exceptionally excited" to be back Monday.

"They felt torn being out of the school and away from their kids," he said of the teachers. "They're a little tired but happy to be back."

Wasn't fatigue one of the maladies covered by those fraudulent doctors' notes?

Johnson said he expects conversations about the protests to continue, inside and outside of classrooms.

"If (teachers are) going to be speaking about the rally and the protest, it really needs to be a planned lesson and it really needs to look at both sides," Johnson said. 

They might start with this item from Christian Scheider: Of Course It's about the Money:

Walker has attempted to change that framework, allowing government workers to opt out of paying union dues — which, he has said, he thinks may offset the increased health and pension contributions he’s asking of employees.

And it is this provision that has the unions most up in arms. They know that, given the option, many of their members would choose not to write out a check for union dues. This, in turn, would strangle their election spending, leaving them scrambling for funds and, consequently, influence. [. . .]

Collective bargaining and money are nearly synonyms. Union negotiating devoid of financial consideration would be akin to non-alcoholic whiskey: all the bitterness without the desired effect. In the end, 70,000 protesters didn’t show up on the Wisconsin Capitol grounds on Saturday to demand their right to use colored chalk in their classrooms.

Read the rest on why that emboldened sentence is true.

*Update: See Michelle Malkin: Rank-and-file teachers speak truth to prog power

An aside: Perhaps Obama's spendthrift budget and active support of union power in Wisconsin and elsewhere are taking their toll:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 21% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20 (see trend).

That’s the lowest level of Strong Approval yet recorded for President Obama and the lowest Approval Index rating since November. 

Saturday: -15
Sunday: -18
Monday: -18
Today: -20

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