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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (26856)	12/10/1998 10:23:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

RE: NEA and the schools Does the NEA represent the teachers for collective bargaining in your school district? Does the school board sign a collective bargaining agreement with the NEA? Does the collective bargaining agreement give the NEA control of the textbooks used in your schools? If the answer to any of these questions is no, you are just puffing smoke. I think you will find that the reason your schools are so bad is that you have a local school board made up of uneducated people (who know little that is true about education) elected by your Christian neighbors whom you are so proud of for running Hari Krishnas out of town and abstaining from burning Catholic churches. The NEA has no control of any content of any school. It is a federation of state teachers associations, some local associations of which represent some teachers for purposes of collective bargaining -- their powers being limited to bargaining over wages, hours, and working conditions. Anything else, such as textbooks, can be bargained over only if the employer wishes to bargain over it. And please believe me, none of them do. Of course, teachers, or groups of teachers (peacably assembled) can petition the school board for a redress of grievances under the First and Fourteenth Amendment and seek to influence textbook selection through democratic processes. (NB: this is a big country -- your mileage may vary).

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (26856)	12/10/1998 11:04:00 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

>(distributing condoms, abortions without the knowledge of the parents, sex education taken out of the domain of the home and put in school to be handles the way they feel is appropriate), homosexuality is presented as a lifestyle choice< OH MY GOD- you have teachers doing abortions at your school without parental consent!!! Why this is a HUGE problem. Alert the newsmedia, alert the AMA. As for the other stuff- sex education comes down to a child's right to know about THIER own body. Even if parents are absolute idiots, it doesn't mean the parents have a right to make their children ignorant morons as well (let them choose to be ignorant later- when they are old enough to make a choice, as you have done)- unless they home school them. And I know lots of home schooling families that are doing just that- I think it is a form of child abuse myself. With-holding medical treatment, withholding knowledge- no parent should be allowed to do that, imo. You can present your views, you can lay down your rules, but to keep a working knowledge of your child's body away from him/her seems to me to border on a health issue.

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (26856)	12/10/1998 11:15:00 AM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Bob, I absolutely agree with you about the NEA! Where we part company is that I don't feel this is an intentional vendetta against just Christians, but an attack on all parental authority, no matter what their beliefs. I am strongly opposed to the the teaching of sex education or the acceptability of homosexuality as a life style in schools, not because I don't believe in these things, but because they have no place in the educational system, nor are they the responsibility of anyone else to teach my children. Unfortunately many parents have abdicated their responsibilities. What do we do about this? The standards of Christianity are very nice, almost universally accepted; they have much in common with the standards of other major religions and with the standards of many atheists. But you haven't been talking about standards, you've been pushing religion. Very different. My 17 year old considers himself an atheist, yet he has higher "standards" than many of his "Christian" friends. Are you sure you're not confusing faith and general moral and ethical behavior which may exist independent of specific religions? I would feel much more comfortable about you and YOUR agenda if you had not written that These are two top very anti-christian thrusts in the public schools. These agenda's violate my religious freedom to raise my child by the standards of my faith. No one has taken away your right to raise your child as you see fit. But you most certainly take away mine if you insist that the Christian religion is the only acceptable way to raise children and you insult me when you imply that because my children have no religious affiliation they are immoral or without standards. That makes me extremely wary of you--just as wary as I am of the NEA.