Showing posts with label Julie Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julie Williams. Show all posts

Basically News isn't News Anymore

Wish they would have done the Daily Show
I think most of us, who do research on the Internet and look for hints and trails in the news sources for leads into deeper areas to mine with research, understand that there is a lot of nonsense out there on the web. For example, anything coming out of the mouths of the latest Americans for Prosperity blurb, or Breitbart.com or CounterPunch.com needs to be read as 'fiction' with perhaps a smidgen of truth. Seriously, I've even caught Breitbart.com blatantly lying about quotes people have said (those people shocked to discover Breitbart proclaimed they talked to them at all.)

Not just an Issue - The Issue - Jeffco Kids Inspire

It is kids.

High school mainly. They just wanted their AP US History Class, so they could get college credits, and prepare for college level learning. The curriculums were already decided. The State Board of Education already approved of the AP US History course.

Kids are connected. They are on the Tweeter all the time, sending messages and keeping in touch with people that have moved away. Some out of state, some just to Douglas County. But they keep in touch like they still live next door.

And they hear things. They hear about Texas dropping the whole curriculum state wide and bringing God into the class room. That Moses is the designer and inspiration of the Constitution of the United States. And that George Washington said that this nation was founded and held free by Christians (when he never said that, anywhere). They pick up the falseness.

Closer to home, Douglas county School Board breaks the teacher's union. Begins having closed meetings against the Sunshine law. Things in the schools are getting weird down in Douglas. Weird like the notices for the AP US History classes have been taken down. A new bulletin is up. The bulletin says that the Colorado Christian University is offering College Prep Classes now. That they will be taught at the high school for $200 a credit. That the kids will earn Credits as CCR not AP.

They ask, "Is CCR accepted anywhere else?" and get no answers.

Messages on Facebook, and flashes on the Twitter are getting weird. On her Facebook page Julie Williams, one of the board members is talking about Texas. Says that it was a good thing. Like it is something she admires.

Then, in September, Julie Williams stops the meeting to say that she has concerns about the AP US History course.That it is too Left. That it doesn't project the right message for the kids. She hasn't read it. She doesn't know anything about it. She's never even seen it -- which she will admit the next day to CBS news cameras -- but she has concerns.

The kids know that this is how it starts. This is how it started in Texas. This is what happened in Douglas. It started exactly like this, and no one said anything. No one continues to say anything.

The kids stand up.

They say, "No."

The kids didn't mean to shout it, so that I heard it while I was passing. They didn't know that The American Historical Association (AHA) and the Organization of American Historians (OAH) would hear them all the way in Washington D.C. and send their support. Other people begin to send their support as well. Congressmen, Senators, Governors. Actors.  The kid's voices get Re-Tweeted 
Wonkette: “Colorado Students Ditch Class, Refuse To Love America” 
TPM: “Students Use Civil Disobedience To Protest Removing It From History Curriculum” 
New York Times: “In Colorado, a Student Counter-protest to an Anti-Protest Curriculum”
And all that is well and good, a little heady and a little scary, but then their parents hear them, and tell them they have their support as well... and that's when anyone paying attention knows that the School Board is going down. It's all over the Tweets. It's in their eyes when they are protesting next to their mother, or their father.

The GOP candidates for the coming election say that the teachers are putting them up to it.

Julie Williams and Ken Witt on the District School Board say the kids are just pawns, being played by the teacher' s union. That these kids don't know what they are doing or why.

This angers the kids. And at the Board meeting, they want an apology. They don't get one. They want the board to stop messing with their college readiness courses, and they produce a petition with 40,000+ names. The Board says no, but calls it a compromise. But it isn't a compromise. They are going to do the exact same thing they were going to do before. The Board isn't listening. There are hundreds of parents and teachers and students there, and the Board isn't listening.

The Kids give Julie Williams, Ken Witt and John Newkirk a unanimous vote of no confidence.

The only job the Board really has, the kids reason, is to create and maintain a safe environment where they can get the most out of their school years. For the last year, they only had one job. The kids decide, "Epic Fail".

Now even more people are hearing them. 

It is cool that you are hearing them. And if it brings home to you and makes what is happening in Congress real to you, then that is cool too. But if you want to help, sign the Recall petition. Take back their school. Get the away from the agenda of a few, who listen to no one. They can't vote. They need you.

Stand up.

Why Is This So Hard To Understand? AP US History

From The AP US History Webpage 

-- READ ME -- 

First Lines of Content


The AP® Program unequivocally supports the principle that each individual school must develop its own curriculum for courses labeled “AP.” Rather than mandating any one curriculum for AP courses, the AP Course Audit instead provides each AP teacher with a set of expectations that college and secondary school faculty nationwide have established for college-level courses.

AP teachers are encouraged to develop or maintain their own curriculum that either includes or exceeds each of these expectations; such courses will be authorized to use the “AP” designation. Credit for the success of AP courses belongs to the individual schools and teachers that create powerful, locally designed AP curricula.

The AP U.S. History course should be designed by your school to provide students with a learning experience equivalent to that of an introductory college course sequence in United States history. Your course should provide students with the analytic skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the topics and materials in U.S. history.

There are no specific curricular prerequisites for students taking AP U.S. History.

All students who are willing and academically prepared to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses. The College Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the AP Program. Schools should make every effort to ensure that their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population.

High schools offering this exam must provide the exam administration resources described in the AP Coordinator’s Manual.

http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/courses/us_history.html


So I have to ask -- exactly what is the District Board and Williams going to Investigate?  THERE ARE NO LESSONS TO APPROVE OF!  Schools/Teachers using the Manual, following the EXAMPLES create their own lessons, and tests for their students. 

Julie Williams started this mess with the Kids, solely on the baisis of what she read about the AP USHistory posted by extremists on the Internet. She didn't check her facts. She didn't care about the Kids, her Schools, she only cared about her agenda. So, she incited a walk-out over nothing.  Please... Do something about this. 

The New York Times -- The New History


Board Violations -- Of the Repeated Type






Recall of Williams Appears the only measure to stop Obstruction of Education

Just read this article on Chalk Beat Colorado 

I didn't realize that the Jeffco Board Majority was being so obstructive to their student's education. While most of my interest in this area diminished with the AP Censorship, if I was a parent in this district I would be seriously concerned with what I'm hearing. 

This Julie Williams, who apparently has experience as an office manager in a medical office, and no experience or training at all in the field of education -- and after starting all of this because she didn't bother to read the instructions on the AP US History documents, but instead took the word of reactionists and extremist who also didn't read the instructions -- is doing more to disrupt education than anyone I've ever seen (Except perhaps the Governor of Texas). It really feels like she would prefer the schools to be closed. Several times she has been quoted as admiring the latest actions of the department of education in Texas -- which most people look at as a monumental travesty. Here are the instructions these people can't seem to find or read.

http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/courses/us_history.html

I think Re-Call is in order. If only for this Williams woman who it appears is bent on destruction.

Oh.. and a look at Texas, who Julie Williams seems to be so enamored with..from News Week


...students reading Perfection Learning’s new textbook on American history will think Moses was right up there with John Locke and Charles de Montesquieu in influencing Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and their brethren. What role did Moses supposedly play? The textbook claims he contributed the concept that “a nation needs a written code of behavior.” Forget the biblical ignorance shown in suggesting Moses provided the code for a “nation” rather than for the Jewish people, who had no nation (failing to reach the Promised Land was kind of key to the Book of Deuteronomy). Forget the legal ignorance in suggesting the Constitution had anything to do with a “code of behavior” rather than establishing democratic government and the rights guaranteed to citizens. Forget the historical ignorance in suggesting that the first laws came from Moses when the sixth Amorite king of Babylon established one of the first written set of laws, known as Hammurabi's Code, hundreds of years earlier.
 I shudder every time I think of this... It is sedition and corruption of the highest -- and yet it is happening right now. 

"The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion to another ... in the words of Jefferson, the [First Amendment] clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and State' ... That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. -- The United States Supreme Court

The article suggests that the publishers created these text books for Texas (under the board's direction) because Texas was such a huge purchaser of school text books (number one in the nation it seems). I think that the rest of the nation should insure that Texas is now their ONLY customer, for being so greedy that the students learning from these text books didn't matter to them at all. 

Seriously publishers.. shame on you. 

What We Learned in Colorado - Verify before Opening Mouth

So, we got through the Board Meeting and no one died, people were heard, the Jeffco School Board may or may not have learned that they are working for the people of their district, not the other way around and there were some serious displays of not only community pride, but civic understanding. 

So, now, we need to understand and come to grips with a rather .. well uncomfortable realization...

The whole bases of this argument was erroneous and misleading. At the core of this problem is the "facts being taught"  Every one was concerned with What was going to be taught, or what wasn't going to be taught, Censorship, Patriotism, all based on the Data of the AP History program -- well those facts don't exist yet. 

Yeah, I know.. embarrassing huh? That moment when you realize that your school board members can't read? yeah... 

The School Board member Julie Williams is mis-informed (Most likely this was an intentional lie to her as well). Since she didn't bother to research the information and verify it, I give her no absolution. She caused this whole mess through arrogant beliefs and should be removed from her position. She has no business being anywhere near a school -- except maybe to attend. 

The College Board AP system changed this year, so that it could encompass the vast amount of history the different states wished to focus on and teach. The ONLY goal that AP classes have (History or otherwise) is to prepare the student for College Level Learning.. that is very important to keep in mind. The difference between High School History and College History is really only one thing. 

In High School you learn and test for your ability to recall facts. i.e. What date was the Declaration Signed? 

In College you learn to analyze the information. Simply knowing the trivia is not enough, so a College Level question would be -- What Did the Declaration Declare? Analyzing the Declaration you might pick up on the realization that the words "United States" had never been used publicly before to describe the collection of colonies. Also you might consider, the opening paragraph stated, the representatives of the states were laying before "the opinions of mankind" the reasons "one people" had chosen "to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them." Those "powers of the earth" -- meaning other sovereign states -- were the immediate international audience for the Declaration. The United States intended to join them on an equal footing "as Free and Independent States" that "have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which independent States may of right do" 

So, really there is a vast difference between Trivia and Understanding The College Board considered this, and it appears that they came to the conclusion that It Doesn't Matter, however What information is being analyzed, only that the skill of analyzing is learned. So, the goal of the AP US History Framework was to create a tool, a program, in which the teacher could convey these skills. BUT the teacher could chose what ever History and Context, indeed even the Text Book she wished to use as her base data.

As Presented, so that the College Board could explain to the teacher how to use the Framework, it was necessary, of course, to provide SAMPLE data -- otherwise there would be a lot of blank spaces in the instruction manual. IT WAS NOT REAL DATA, just sample data. All of it NEEDED to be replaced by the teacher with REAL data, that she would provide. 

The SAMPLE data was misunderstood (I believe misrepresented on purpose by Larry Krieger a former AP High School History teacher), to be what the AP US History program was teaching... and nothing.. could be further from the truth. The School, or the State, or whoever is tasked with the project, is the sole and only provider of the Data the AP Framework will utilize during the course. 

Which is exactly what the AP US History Instruction page says on the College Board Web site.. have a look 

If you are interested you can check out my blog for further information

By the way.. Jeffco Students Rock!
#JeffcoStandup #Standup4kids

For those looking for Recall, this link is a good place to begin
http://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_recall_in_Colorado#Signature_requirement


Where the Wild Things Are...

Chess is a Wild game I've only been playing for a short time, but I've gained enough understanding to realize that the angles of ...