Liberals Brainwashing a Captive Audience

Seeing something like this is the kind of thing that makes you roll your eyes when the topic of education comes up, then think how the heck teachers like this get into the classroom.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, a Middle School teacher recently assigned a project to his eighth grade class to complete an opposition research project on the Republicans seeking the GOP Nomination to run against Obama, then to send the information they found to the Obama campaign. Nowhere did the teacher offer the students the option to do opposition research on Obama, nowhere did the teacher give the students a choice of which political party they'd prefer to research, nowhere did the teacher ask the students to respond to the reserach. The principal may have suggested the teacher should have gone a different way with the project, but deep down inside, that administrator and that teacher are saying to themselves, "Damn parents don't know what it's like to teach these kids. I wish they'd just shut up and let us do our jobs." Oh yes, I've heard statements similar to that in my career!

I find the nature of this project absolutely disgusting and it says a lot about how the public education system skews left. Had I been teaching these children, the "send to the campaigns" requirement would be taken out and half the students would complete opposition research on both Obama AND a Republican candidate, while the second half would be required to forumate a response, for both candidates, to the research.

In the trenches within the profession, I have seen the left skew in action. Some principals I've worked with or discussed the issue with put off the idea of the liberal bias; the same way many do when one discusses liberal bias in the media. It's a fact, but these principals are either naive or in denial. In my career, there have been times I've been told to "be careful to show Republican political ads in class;" even when I am showing Democrat political ads to analyze both parties and how they use television to either attack their opponent or articulate their positions. I've sat on hiring committees and have seen supervisors ask some very political questions to prospective hires; knowing it's illegal to ask those questions, then suggesting to the committee to toss out that candidate because of "backward political leanings." I've even been asked, in interviews, questions that will allude to my political leanings. They know they can get away with it because there is either fear of retribution if the accuser complains to a higher power, or a "he said-she said" game that the accuser will likely lose.

The parents were brave to speak up, but I would have taken it a step further and not hidden behind anonymity-own it, don't be afraid, and don't let that teacher hide behind tenure. Parents must be vigilant about what goes on in their child's Social Studies classroom and should never be afraid to speak up and against what is clearly not education, but indoctrination!