Teachers across America are speaking up about the lack of controlled behavior in public schools. What changed? Why are teachers frustrated because behavior problems have become unbearable?  Why are they leaving the profession in droves?

I believe there are many factors contributing to this problem. Parents who believe the school is a daycare center for their children are failing to do their job of raising respectful children. As a parental rights advocate in New Hampshire, I make no excuses for poor parenting. This is becoming a bigger problem that schools must deal with. But even if parents are failing to raise respectful children, that doesn’t mean that schools should be failing students, too.

The national fad is to provide students with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), and more school counselors and social workers are being added to the payroll. You might be asking yourself, what does bad behavior have to do with any of this? Send these kids to the Principal’s office, where consequences will be administered. Sorry folks, a lot has changed since you were in school.

Classes have become chaotic with poor quality pedagogy practices. Instead of teachers teaching, teachers are told to have the kids work in groups. This will help them build collaboration skills for the workforce. Remember, public education is workforce training–it’s no longer about teaching them academics. The classroom can become chaotic, which then requires additional paraprofessionals in the room to help the teacher manage the class. This drives up the cost of education and requires a great deal of classroom management.

Schools use Project Based Learning or Inquiry Based Learning, which can add to problems in a classroom. Gone are the days of teacher-focused instruction which leads to higher levels of proficiency, kids are expected to teach each other in groups or go figure it out.

Social and emotional learning is supposed to help children self-manage their emotions and behaviors. But it can extend to group therapy and mental health assessments. This SEL data is collected, stored, and even shared without parents’ knowledge.

How does SEL replace consequences in the school for children who need that?

In this study, SEL Equity-based social-emotional learning (SEL): A critical lens for moving forward, they report: (emphasis added)

Authors King Lund, Hillis, Green, and Mofeld in their article, Mind-Sets Matter for Equitable Discipline: Aligning Beliefs to Practice Among Middle Grade Educators, also call attention to SEL. They write about how Restorative Justice Practices (RJP) offer a positive approach to disci-
pline while also providing middle school students opportunities to develop social-emotional skills (confict resolution and self-management). In contrast to other more traditional, punitive, and systemically inequitable models, RJP offers an approach where students of color are especially considered.

You can see the call to move away from the “punitive and systemically inequitable models” of consequences in schools. They then reference, “students of color are especially considered.”But does that work in the classroom? Many teachers across America are speaking up and talking about the behavior problems they are now expected to manage.

This article from Education Week attempts to explain Restorative Justice in the Classroom. But if you read the comments from educators, you will see that many of them don’t buy it.

 

 

It’s not that these teachers have “biases” or are racists, it’s that they know how kids work. They know that if you let kids off without any real consequences for their behavior, many will repeat bad behavior.  This isn’t rocket science, if you’ve raised children you know that boundaries must be set, and consequences administered, if the child defies those boundaries.

Can there be other factors to consider when a child breaks through those boundaries? Of course. Some kids learn the first time, some go on to repeat their actions to see how far they can go.

Teachers have become desperate for SEL or other fads because administrators are failing to bring order and discipline to the school. Some teachers are better at managing their classrooms but some of these faddish practices set teachers up to fail. They are there to teach, not become the enforcers.

When we were kids, we didn’t visit the school counselor for mental health if we were misbehaving. This isn’t a mental health issue, but that’s how some of them are treated. Or when you finally see the administrators punish the school bully, sometimes they go and reverse it. What kind of message is that sending the child?

Parents need to do their jobs, but it’s no excuse for the school system to fail these kids, too. This is one big set-up for failure when these kids get older.

MORE HERE:
Restorative circles are unethical and have no place in schools
Nine Criticisms of School Restorative Justice

The post Social Emotional Learning, Restorative Justice, and Rewarding Bad Behavior appeared first on Granite Grok.

I think we’ve been going about this all wrong. People “on our side” keep asking to fly flags in front of city hall and getting rejected, which hints at unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. The City just rejected a revolutionary-era flag.

And now it has rejected a trans-rights flag.

Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess rejected my appeal of the city’s decision to not allow me to fly a flag commemorating Detransition Awareness Day. I hope he has a change of heart as this medical scandal unravels.@NashuaOEM @JimDonchess #NHPolitics pic.twitter.com/lbsucXhHBa

— Sidewalk Steve (@Sidewalk_Steve) March 9, 2024

Trans rights. Yes. If you have a right to transition, you must also have a right to not transition (a choice) and the right to transition back. Otherwise, what you call trans rights is nothing of the sort, and by refusing to fly that flag, the City of Nashua and Mayor Donchess are anti-trans rights.

Prove me wrong.

We could say the same for a pro-life flag. Ask any pro-abortion supporter – even the intolerable harpies, and they will proudly announce that no one is making you get an abortion. It is a pro-choice argument, but I doubt Nashua would ever let anyone fly a pro-choice flag (where life is the choice) if such a thing even exists. Perhaps someone should try.

Going About It the Right Way

Some other pro-liberty person should request to fly a BLM flag or pride flag or some such thing. See if the City approves that. Or, if you can’t stomach the notion, take pictures of the flags they do fly, and we’ll probably have enough evidence for a case you can send to any number of pro-bono national liberty law firms who chase these sorts of things through the courts at their own expense.

In the name of rights and stuff and junk. Detransition rights, for example.

Just find a flag the City will fly that proves it is guilty of viewpoint discrimination unless you already have evidence, in which case it’s off to the races. Or just because it’s fun.

What’s the worst that could happen? The City has to stop pretending to be non-partisan and unbiased; no more citizen flags of any stripe. That’s what Boston did after wasting two million dollars defending its viewpoint discrimination and losing. Let them do that and then we get to ask them what else about their administration is just like the flag pole

The answer is probably everything.

The post Mayor Refuses to Fly “Pro-Trans” Flag in Front of City Hall appeared first on Granite Grok.

Rep she/her Selig wants you to know that she has a vagina and is heterosexual. This, apparently, is very important to her because in her tweet celebrating “Pride Month,” those are the first things she tells us … she has a vagina and is heterosexual. This is narcissism.

She/her Selig is actually celebrating her opinion of herself … I am different and better; yeah, I may have a vagina; yeah, I may like sex with men, but I am part of the elite, the enlightened, the chosen! 

She/her Selig and he fellow Woke-Communists are … I repeat … narcissists. They believe that their religion, Woke-Communism, makes them special, better, superior.

The post “Pride Month” Is Really About Woke-Communists Celebrating … Themselves appeared first on Granite Grok.

Most of you knwo about the years or fire predictions in the 1970s. Scientists believed we were at the beginning of another ice age. Experts, along with a compliant media, pimped story after story about the precipice of frozen doom and what we should do about it.

By 1978, everyone was well aware of the situation, but four years later, in 1982, the compliant media was singing a different song. The experts had been warning us about global warming “for years.”

Credibility, much?

Forty years into the latest thing and what experts believe has resulted in forty years of failed predictions, models that calculate the size of future grants but nothing about the earth’s climate or even the local weather.

Trillions have been wasted on non-productive purposes. A decades-long political movement whose only purpose is to realign the means of production.

Four years, and the narrative completely flips.

Tony Heller at RCSB shares a few of the receipts.
cc

The post Night Cap: The Rapid Change in “Climate Change” … Narrative appeared first on Granite Grok.

Incredible show of support for Donald Trump at last night’s (6/1) UFC 302. The pop he got when he walked in with Dana White gave you goosebumps. And it was not just the crowd … IN NEW JERSEY … showing Trump the love. The fighters did to … shaking his hand, taking selfies with him, giving him shout-outs in the post-fight interviews.

It’s very simple … real men support Trump, while the “men” who support BidenX are unhappy, low-t, no-t, pussy-boy, woke-commies. Don’t believe me … just look at the “men” with Ds after their names in the NH-House.

 

 

The post Real Men Support Trump … Low-T, No-T, Beta-Male Woke-Commies Support BidenX appeared first on Granite Grok.

A former Superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) is alleged to have used the power of her office to coerce financial institutions to refuse to do business with the National Rifle Association (NRA).

We see a good deal of this alleged misconduct as partisans engage with banks and insurance companies as a way to stifle an operation or impair its ability to operate, which includes the ability to freely associate, do business with, and engage in public expression.

Maria Vullo, while serving as DFS superintendent, appears to have made it her mission to ensure that those over whom her office had regulatory authority chose not to do business with the NRA. And while the action was based on a legitimate violation of state law.

[An] investigation revealed at least two kinds of violations of New York law: that Carry Guard insured intentional criminal acts, and the NRA promoted Carry Guard without an insurance producer license. By mid-November, upon finding out about the investigation following DFS information requests, Lockton and Chubb suspended Carry Guard.

Lockton and Chubb paid fines in the millions and made every effort to comply with New York State law, but Vullo used this single instance as an excuse to reach out to everyone and anyone associated with insurance lined to the NRA. Vullo used DFS letterhead. Vullo spoke as the Superintendent of the DFS. Vullo, upon finding minor violations, offered to dismiss or ignore them if the business promised to cease all relationships with the NRA (and any other gun groups). These companies complied, aiding Vullo’s viewpoint discrimination to make it difficult or impossible for the NRA to operate in the State.

The case made its way up the judicial food chain to the US Supreme Court which arrived at a 9-0 unanimous verdict. In the opinion written by Justice Sotomayor, Vullo is shown to have clearly violated the First Amendment rights of the NRA (citations removed).

Nothing in this case gives advocacy groups like the NRA a “right to absolute immunity from [government] investigation,” or a “right to disregard [state or federal] laws.”  Similarly, nothing here prevents government officials from forcefully condemning views with which they disagree. For those permissible actions, the Constitution “relies first and foremost on the ballot box, not on rules against viewpoint discrimination, to check the government when it speaks.”  Yet where, as here, a government official makes coercive threats in a private meeting behind closed doors, the “ballot box” is an especially poor check on that official’s authority. Ultimately, the critical takeaway is that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from wielding their power selectively to punish or suppress speech, directly or (as alleged here) through private intermediaries.

The Left hates the NRA, so they will hate this decision, but I have yet to see any email alerts from MoveOn listing Justice Sotomayor or Justice Jackson (for example) as “constitutional Threats” who must be impeached. I guess they can’t fundraise off of them, even when their BIPOC justices “vote” the wrong way.

 

The post Sotomayor Writes 9-0 Free Speech Decision – NY Official Violated NRA’s First Amendment Rights appeared first on Granite Grok.

In 2016, New Hampshire Police and Fire rewarded Concord PD Julie Curtin for inter-Alia calling around the world to get internet posts taken down regarding Chessy Prout, the state witness in NH v Owen Labrie. She was rewarded for going above and beyond and getting “justice for the victim.”

Before all this happened, Laura L. Dunn (advisor to the White House “Not Alone” task force and co-founder of SurvJustice, a non-profit) had trained Concord PD and prosecutors in campus sexual assault investigations at UNH. The Executive Council approved a grant for the NHCADSV (a DOD contractor) for this purpose.

According to Laura Dunn’s resume, she handled the media during NH v Owen Labrie. According to the Concord Monitor from August 2015, Amanda Grady Sexton—of the NHCADSV, Sen Shaheen’s re-election campaign, and City of Concord Council—attended the Labrie trial to “keep tabs on the media,” seeing it as an “opportunity’ for the media to make important decisions about what is fair or not to report.

WMUR (Adam Sexton) had exclusive coverage on the trial, and influencer journalists hired specifically for the job from Vice Media, AP, Boston Globe, NYT, WaPo, and NBC were involved, along with political PR companies, including SKDK and HillImpact.com. NHPR’s Paige Sutherland had her tweets included in an exhibit to restrict media access, but she was never informed of this. I discovered this in court files.

We want to thank Claire Best for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.

The trial was, I believe, the first trial in the U.S. to use and experiment with the Censorship Industrial Complex with full backing and communications with the White House during the trial from Laura L Dunn, who merely presented herself on TV as the “personal representative for the victim’s family.”

Everyone knew—Concord PD, Merrimack Prosecutors, Congresswoman Ann Kuster, City of Concord Council, Amanda Grady Sexton, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, UNH Law, UNH PIRC, DOE OCR, DOJ OVW, and the Prout family, who’d flown to DC to sort out the details with Laura L Dunn—except St Paul’s School, its community, and the defendant, Owen Labrie.

A book was already preplanned, media engagements were preplanned, work for the Democratic Party was preplanned, and the Prout family would earn an estimated $2 million between 2104 and 17 if they agreed to the plan set out and introduced by Concord PD and Laura L Dunn.

It is my belief that while Concord PD Julie Curtin was rewarded for censorship of Facebook and other social media posts regarding Chessy Prout, the negative posts may very well have been hoax posts created by and with the help of Concord PD Amanda Grady Sexton and Laura L Dunn in order to leverage public hatred against Owen Labrie and sympathy for Chessy Prout as the “survivor” that Congresswoman Ann Kuster needed in order to influence “the Harry Potter generation” (there was also the Harry Potter Alliance political organization as well).

New Hampshire’s AG has never investigated this but I believe there should be an investigation into the media, censorship and social media and censorship in the Labrie and St Paul’s cases. I believe that UNH PIRC (paid to create propaganda for the DOJ OVW and WH “Not Alone” task force) knows all about this.

Laura L Dunn instructed Concord PD Julie Curtin in 2014, according to an account by Chessy Prout. Laura L Dunn helped with the fake Rolling Stone UVA “A Rape on Campus” story, which led to the Eramo v Rolling Stone lawsuit. Dunn is featured in Exhibit 15B. Her resume states she was an expert witness in the case. Actually, she was instrumental in helping to place the story and instruct the journalist. Dunn lied about her own alleged sexual assault on a Center for Public Integrity program on NPR in 2010, which paved the way for her involvement in the unregulated “Dear Colleague “ Title IX directive introduced at UNH on April 4, 2011. She had on the board of SurvJustice, a social media influencer-Wagatwe Wanjuki.

Mimicking social media handles appears to be a specialty of Amanda Grady Sexton, NHCADSV, and Concord PD. It was after I wrote to the LEACT commission that my Twitter handle was followed by Amanda Grady Sexton and the NHCADSV. Then it was followed by a since removed handle called @letsheartherea1, which copied the anonymous @letshearthetru handle I started in July 2019 when Amanda Grady Sexton, NHCADSV, Congresswoman Kuster, Laura L Dunn, SurvJustice, et al. launched their successful social media and phone campaign to block Owen Labrie’s interview with Amy Robach on ABC from airing. Dan Hill of hillimpact.com (working with NHCADSV, Prouts and Laura L Dunn, and Kuster) was sent in to try to phish and find out my identity on Twitter, to mock me, smear me, accuse me of being a rape apologist, etc.

I am none of these. I read actual records. I read actual depositions and discovery.

New Hampshire has allowed its justice system and its educational institutions to be tainted by the censorship of the military-industrial complex. The result: a rapidly failing democracy because democracy cannot thrive without divisions between branches of government and the media.

The book, with introduction by Congresswoman Ann Kuster and heavily promoted by the NHCADSV, SurvJustice and Laura L Dunn: ihavetherighttobook.com equates Owen Labrie to an “Al Qaeda terrorist” and “Donald Trump”. Simultaneously, Chessy Prout expresses awe at meeting Bill Clinton- who lied to the public about his torrid abuse of power to sexually abuse and then have his wife smear Monica Lewinsky. The Prout family was effectively recruited before the trial of Owen Labrie to work for the 2016 Clinton campaign via Shaheen’s campaign director Amanda Grady Sexton, Concord PD Julie Curtin, and It’s On Us.

Dan Hill got pretty angry with me for figuring this out. He doesn’t have such a stellar reputation when you start digging. It’s amazing what you can get away with in NH courts once you use media to create, manipulate, and control the narrative in order to get government contracts as NHCADSV, SurvJustice, and the Concord PD did.

They are happy to remove social media and articles that are negative to Chessy Prout or NHCADSV, but ask NH AP to correct the actual facts about Owen Labrie, and you will get nowhere.

Do you want your children to be incited to commit hate violence against someone because of what they read about someone in the news from articles generated and controlled by the NHCADSV, or do you want them to become critical thinkers?

I have worked in media for over 30 years in the UK, the US, and around the world. I understand how censorship works because I have had to deal with it in the course of my career in studios and agencies and as a freelancer filming in Mexico, Japan, South America, and Germany before the wall came down, as well as China and Japan. I knew something was wrong in the Labrie trial regarding the sensationalized coverage. I was horrified by what I uncovered.

Liars beget liars to cover lies.

The post New Hampshire is very Much a Part of Rise of the Censorship Industrial Complex appeared first on Granite Grok.

An article on Nashua Inklink stated that the school district budget was going up 4.49%. However, the City’s 2025 Budget book states that the School District is going up 4.94%. One would think that someone made a typo, but no, it gets better.

In going back to Superintendent Mario Andrade, he stated that the school district does not pick up benefits, and no, he is not kidding.

The Nashua residents should take note that the benefits amount to $51 million dollars, and believe me when I say that the Nashua taxpayers do pay for them. Of course, the benefits to employees need to be put in because all employees, including teachers, are getting these “benefits.” This additional $51 million dollars will also change the cost per student from $17,775 to $18,380. A resident should forget that my figures do not include the School Special Revenues and School Grants, which are included in the City’s budget but NOT in the school budget.

Residents pay all this for a below-par education in our public schools for our children. Per the Student Proficiency Assessment of 2023, Nashua scores were:

North HS   South HS  Academy of Arts
Math Proficiency  34%  48%  86%
Reading Proficiency 58%  65%  90%
Science Proficiency 41%  53%  84%

Also reported in this assessment was the fact that the average salary for North and South teachers was $65,319 and the cost per pupil was $19,498 compared to the Academy of Arts & Science, where the average salary was $43,566 and cost per pupil was $9,985. And residents wonder why there has been an increase in Charter School enrollment, up by 35% since 2019 (per Union Leader 1/11/2024 report).

If a resident goes to page 25 of the school budget presentation, they will note that the average teacher has 18.4 students, down from 18.9 students last year.

If a resident goes to the school district budget, they will see on page 11 that the school district shows the 24 Adopted Budget vs the Proposed 2025 Budget.

Adopted Budget for 2024:

Labor $98.1 million 56%
Benefits $48.2 million 28%
Proposed Budget for 2025:
Labor $100.0 million 55%
Benefits $50.9 million 28%

This shows that 83% of the school budget is going to employees for salaries and benefits. All teachers have city and state-funded pensions whereas most people do not get this luxury.

The post The School District Must Think We’re Stupid appeared first on Granite Grok.

Welcome to Wednesday. Hump Day. Midweek. When I went to college, Wednesday was the day before the day before Friday, so we started the weekend early. And now you know why I didn’t graduate.

It was also ten-cent wings and beer night.

Correlation may, in this case, be causation.

Memes, you say? Yes, let us get on with the memes. And they are memes. Potentially more accurate than Wikipedia, Snopes, or the Nightly News, or just as accurate. We are not here to judge, merely to pretend to be the meme guy, hoping no one suspects a thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trigger warning. … Pride Month Humor.

 

 

 

Next!
Lefty Pride monther parade disrupted by lefty pro-Palestine “rain.”

NEW: LGBTQers and pro-Palestine protesters have a standoff at the Philly Pride Parade.

Remarkable.

Pro-Palestine protesters were seen blocking the path of the LGBTQ pride parade.

“Tense moments as Palestine Protesters block Philly Pride Parade as it heads towards Gayborhood,”… pic.twitter.com/3vjh8ncGHR

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 2, 2024

 

 

And, back to your regular memeapalooza

 

 

A few years old but true (link).

 

 

 

Trump-Trump-Trump …

 

 

 

 

 

A few more memes

 

 

 

 

 

The post Midweek Memes – “I’ve been Amongst them for Three Weeks and so far …” appeared first on Granite Grok.

So Fauci … the Godfather of COVID … has admitted UNDER OATH that masking and social-distancing had no scientific basis. They just made it all up. Those of us who are still capable of independent thought already knew that … it was all so nonsensical. For example, you could take your mask off to eat on a commercial flight because … because airplane food somehow repels COVID?

You could go on and on and on and on and one with examples of how absurd and illogical the “COVID rules” were. But what I want to know is … WHEN IS FAUCI GOING TO PRISON? When is an Attorney-General in a Red-State going to indict that demonic, arrogant dwarf?

The post We Already Knew Fauci Made It All Up … When Is He Going Prison? appeared first on Granite Grok.