As presented in earlier installments, student performance in reading all over the United States, including New Hampshire and Vermont, has been poor for decades, with over half of students reading below grade level.

In this article, we look at how the Killington Elementary School (KES) in Vermont handled the COVID shutdowns and how it teaches reading.

Mary Guggenberger has been KES principal for eight years. KES is a Pre-K-6 school that has 118 students, including 23 in Pre-K. Like many village schools, it has one class per grade and varying numbers of students in each class. Last year, there were eight students in 2nd grade and 21 students in 3rd grade.

According to Principal Guggenberger, student academic achievement at KES has gone up and down over the last eight years. She said that the pandemic was challenging, though student reading scores were pretty stable. In fact, the school’s overall performance on the state SBAC reading test in 2021 (64% were proficient) was much better than its 2017 scores (48% were proficient). The 2022 scores were not available on the VT Agency of Education website. The agency did not respond to our request for that data.

 

 

Despite rising test scores, Principal Guggenberger felt that the pandemic had a significant impact on individual student achievement. She said that students currently in grades 4-6 have gaps because grades K-3 are so essential to reading. She said that, according to the science of reading, after 3rd grade, it’s harder to master reading.

The “science of reading” is based on decades of research about how students become proficient in reading and writing and why some of them have difficulty. Using brain scans and eye-tracking technology, researchers found that good readers process virtually every letter in every word as they read. Some children catch on quickly. Some, however, need to be taught how to do it. Learning to read is not as natural as learning to talk.

To learn about the science of reading, Guggenberger, and KES’s teachers went through intensive LETRS training last year — Language Essentials for Teaching Reading and Spelling. LETRS helps teachers understand the science of reading in order to help them teach better. For example, a systematic reading program for kids every day is imperative to develop proficient readers, stated Guggenberger. She said that the LETRS training has been amazing and eye-opening.

Like many schools in the Eagle Times circulation area, KES has been using the Fountas & Pinnell “cueing” curriculum. KES started using it eight years ago. According to Guggenberger, the research KES did during their LETRS training showed them that F&P left too much room for guessing what words were, including making predictions based on pictures and not sounding them out.

The idea behind Cueing Theory is that it’s easier for children to learn to read if they start with whole stories and whole sentences instead of trying to read individual words. Teachers cover up words in a story and tell students to look at the picture, look at the first letter, and think of a word that makes sense. The theory says that by practicing this approach, children can figure out how to read on their own. Reading Recovery and Lucy Caulkins are some other programs that use Cueing Theory.

Research indicates that this isn’t how good readers learn to read but, rather, how poor readers try to compensate for not being able to read. The science of reading research is summarized in an engaging podcast series called “Sold a Story,” produced by Emily Hanford, an investigative education journalist at American Public Media.

KES piloted different programs last year and is now moving forward with a curriculum called EL Education. They also use FUNdations for grades K-3, which follows the science of reading. The school will use Hegarty’s Decodable Readers as an intervention to replace the F&P leveled readers.

For benchmark assessments, which KES uses three times a year, it will use DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) and Forefront (for math) to gauge skills in grades K-2, which can also be used for older students if warranted, and STAR for grades 3-6 for reading and math. They also use PAST (Phonological Awareness Screening Test) and PNOA (Primary Number and Operations Assessment) to delve deeper.

Principal Guggenberger says that after KES improves its reading instruction, they will look into changing its approach to math. They’ve been using Investigations for 20 years and have supplemented it with Bridges Interventions recently. But she said that maybe simply teaching reading well will make a difference.

KES is already seeing improvement in reading, and Guggenberger is hopeful that state test scores will go up this coming year. She said that they’re always looking at data to determine the best way they can meet student needs and figure out how to get all teachers on board to support each other. “The new curriculum is a big change for us, on top of coming off COVID. I’m excited,” she said.

This story is part of a series where we show how the pandemic shutdowns in Vermont and New Hampshire affected student performance on state and national standardized tests. Prior installments in this series were published in the Eagle Times on September 9, 12, and 14.

Next, we’ll take a look at test scores and reading instruction at Washington Elementary School in Washington, NH.

 

The post How the Shutdown Affected Student Performance: Killington VT Improved (part 4 of 8) appeared first on Granite Grok.

The book of Allah, purportedly the eternal, never-changing charter of conduct for the individual and the society at large, is singularly wanting. It emphatically and repeatedly vilifies and condemns the kefirs — all non-Muslims. About three percent of the verses of the Quran seem to say something positive about non-Muslims.

Yet even these few verses are immediately followed by verses that discard them.

First, there was the Islam of Mecca or the Islam of weakness. For thirteen years, Muhammad’s teachings, as recorded in the early suras of the Quran, were about hellfire and damnation, not punishment of the unbelievers in this world. Very few people were attracted to what he preached. The people scorned the man, harassed him, and eventually made him flee his hometown of Mecca for Medina. Then, a significant mutation occurred: the Islam of Medina, or the “Islam of Tyranny,” arrived on the scene. The Quran’s suras of Medina are replete with exhortations of intolerance, exclusivity, and sanctioning of violence against non-Muslims. This mutation deeply appealed to the temperament of the Arab Bedouins, and they flocked to Muhammad’s beliefs.

The People of the Book, Jews, and Christians are subject to the Quranic approval only if they recognize that their holy books are corrupt while the Quran is the one true book.

Ironically, Allah, whom Muhammad claims to be the creator of all, does not even bother addressing people of other faiths, such as Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, or those of no faith. Why are all these folks left out? Could it be because Muhammad did not know about them, that Muhammad had contacts only with Jews and Christians?

Muslims and their apologists selectively cite the positive verses of the Quran to impress upon others its goodness and convince them that the book is indeed about peace, tolerance, and the brotherhood of all people. In this spirit of misrepresentation, Islamic organizations in the West spend considerable sums in spreading their propaganda through the media by claiming that Muslims are indeed kin of Jews and Christians and that the only three faiths Islam recognizes are members of the Abrahamic family. According to Muslims, Islam was made for men. Women are playthings of men. Islam is 100% misogynist. Men are superior to women. Women are to obey men and be beaten when disobeying or misbehaving. Islam is racist. The Quran stipulates that Arabs are superior to all others and clearly condones slavery. It explicitly stipulates discriminatory laws for slaves. Islam denounces other belief systems and marginally recognizes the validity of only two religions, Judaism and Christianity. The nature of Islam is based on violence. It not only condones jihad, it recommends it and promises great rewards for the jihadist. Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be. Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the very core of Islam. In many suras, violence is institutionalized in the Muslim holy book, the Quran. The Quran as a Charter of Hate  

It is impossible to accept the Quran as a book of the loving creator of the universe, as Muslims claim. Why would the creator Allah, an all-merciful and compassionate, as the Quran calls him, vilify, despise, and consider all non-Muslims worthy of torment? Studying the Quran shows it to be a charter of hate more than anything else. A few will suffice:

·       Non-Muslims are the worst beasts (sura 8:55);

·       Jews are despicable apes (suras 2:65) and say the Jews are like donkeys (sura 62:5);

·       In the daily prayers that involves seventeen recitations of Al-Fatehe (sura 1), the Jews are demonized, and the Christians are castigated;

·       The Quran condones terrorism (surahs 8:12, 8:59);

·       Killing a Jew earns the Muslim admission in Allah’s paradise (sura 9:11).

·       Forbids asking questions about it, because one may lose his faith (sura 5:101-102);

·       Allah is the one who leads people astray and will punish them for it (suras 5:41, 7:155, 16:53, 6:49);

·       Satan, or the devil, can harm people only by Allah’s permission (sura 58:10). Would not this make Allah responsible for harming people?

Not long ago, a rapist was acquitted by an Islamic court in the Islamic Republic of Iran for his crime by pleading that Satan made him do it. The judge ruled that he could not punish the real culprit, Satan. The man, therefore, was found not guilty of the crime. A truly Islamic form of justice, squarely based on the Quran. Unfortunately, Islam cannot be reformed since Islam claims it is the perfect eternal faith for mankind. Splits have occurred and will continue to appear in Islam. Yet reformation has not happened in nearly 1400 years and will not happen. Allah’s book is sealed.

Before long, fanatical Muslims will eventually acquire the Islamic bomb. With the bomb in one hand and the other on the oil spigot, the religion of peace and brotherhood will have the power to bring the non-Muslim world to its knees.

The post The Discriminatory Quran appeared first on Granite Grok.

You’ll have heard by now that the Governor of New Mexico did what we all said they would. She declared guns a public health threat (I believe she used the word ’emergency’) and suspended open and concealed carry laws (on public property) in Bernalillo County, with exceptions.

Related: How about The ‘Health Benefits’ of Less Government?

Exceptions include for licensed security guards and law enforcement officers. Citizens with permits to carry firearms are free to possess their weapons on private property (such as at a gun range or gun store), provided they transport the firearm in a locked box, use a trigger lock, or some other mechanism that renders the gun incapable of being fired,” according to the press release.

There is nothing healthy about government stomping on your liberties, and we don’t even have to work hard to prove that. Politicians are the worst medicine, but the black Democrat heart wants what it wants, and disarmament is high on the list of things for which it longs. Grisham is just scratching her totalitarian itch. She testing the waters – launching a trial balloon, taking a left turn at Albuquerque.

A Pfederal judge promptly popped that balloon by doing what was expected but rarely seen. He said no, you can’t do that.

 

U.S. District Court Judge David Urias, a Biden appointee, issued a temporary restraining order against Grisham’s gun grab until the next hearing in early October.

Judge Urias said Grisham violated the rights of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves.

 

Grisham still had the itch.

 

BREAKING: New Mexico Governor says she is amending her executive order to allow open and concealed carry (except in public parks and playgrounds) due to the “debate in court”

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 15, 2023

 

Oddly enough, the usual suspects are play-acting their objection. Grab Your Guns Grisham has everyone, including her State AG, telling her she’s on her own.

 

“I am writing to inform you that my office will not defend your administration in the above-referenced cases challenging the Public Health Emergency Order Imposing Temporary Firearm Restrictions, Drug Monitoring and Other Public Safety Measures (the Emergency Order) issued by the Secretary of Health on September 8, 2023,” Raul Torrez wrote in a 4-page letter.

 

The consensus, even on the left – according to most reports – is that now is not the time to use public health as an excuse for the much sought-after disarmament agenda. Gateway Pundit Reports that failed pillow entrepreneur David Hogg thinks it’s a bad idea. But what about the people in Alburquqe?

The County Sherrif won’t enforce it. And I’d like to think they’ve got some of that wild-west liberty brewing somewhere in the mass of people accumulated in Bernalillo County, but it’s a blue place. Republicans don’t win too many elections there, certainly not state or national races. This suggests that the majority is willing to let the government take their liberties.

Grisham’s trial ballon may not get far, but it’s been floated, and I’m betting we’ll see it again, especially if she manages to find the sweet spot. That point at which she can steal your rights with the least amount of resistance.

 

The post Grab Your Guns Grisham Isn’t Letting Go appeared first on Granite Grok.

There’s a new fast food law in California.  It raises the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour.

Not for employees of other businesses.  Just for those at fast food restaurants.

And not even all fast food restaurants.  Just some of them.

For example, the law applies only to restaurants with at least 60 locations nationwide. And it exempts restaurants that make and sell their own bread.  So McDonald’s will be affected, but Subway won’t.  (The courts will have to decide whether pizza crust will be considered ‘bread.’)

It’s hard to even know where to start with something like this. How about with the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law?  In a country where the judges aren’t trained to act like Humpty Dumpty, it shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to overturn this law in court.

But that’s not the country we live in.

Every once in a while, you see laws like this, which are narrowly targeted at particular companies or groups of companies.  Like this one, they are often rationalized under the guise of ‘fairness,’ but they are really about exploiting companies that the lawmakers judge as (1) being able to afford to pay whatever extortion is being demanded and (2) unlikely to simply close down in response.

Politically, it’s the equivalent of taking the child of a rich person hostage.  You know he’s going to pay, and you feel okay about that because you know that he ‘can afford it.’

This law holds businesses hostage, rather than children, but that’s a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.

For those who haven’t yet read Atlas Shrugged, it outlines one possible response to this kind of shakedown:  A character named John Galt starts convincing the owners of businesses that they should just close those businesses instead of continuing to be treated as if their lives are resources to be managed for the good of others — not unlike those of farm animals.

That’s what needs to happen here.  At some point, the business owners need to just walk away — to prioritize their long-term interests over their short-term profits — and leave the politicians to clean up the mess.  (Much of the book is dedicated to laying out the philosophical, moral, and practical arguments that Galt makes to the business owners.)

I know it won’t happen, but imagine that tomorrow, a modern-day John Galt convinces all the owners of fast-food restaurants in California to close their doors, lay off their employees, default on their mortgages, cease to collect sales and other taxes, and force people to either start eating at ‘slow food’ restaurants, or cooking their own meals.

And imagine that they post, on their closed doors, the names and telephone numbers of all the legislators who voted for this law.

What do you suppose might happen?

You want ‘civic engagement’?  This is how you guarantee it.

 

The post Where is John Galt? appeared first on Granite Grok.

The United Auto Workers are on strike. They want a lot of things, including a 40% raise. You’d be right to wonder why no one is talking about their need for a 40% increase in pay and right to guess Democrats and Joe Biden’s economy, which has also tripped up the Left’s Electric Vehicle agenda in the process.

 

While discussing the pay raises demanded by the UAW in negotiations and pay raises for CEOs, [Ford President and CEO Jim ]Farley said that they have offered pay raises and are open to big pay increases, but the 40% that the UAW is asking for is too much and would put the company out of business, and “There’s a fine line here that we won’t go past, which is, we want everyone to participate in our success. But if it prevents us from investing in this transition to EVs and in future products like the ones we have now like a new F-150, the best-selling vehicle in the U.S., then everyone’s job’s at risk if we don’t invest.

 

I’d be inclined to think Ford was just busting the Union’s chops because I have been in a union (Teamsters) and On Strike (UPS). I have some sense of the dynamics and politics on both sides, but then .. not. The UAW is aware of the green jobs problem, as we reported two m months ago.

 

UAW President Shawn Fain, as well as the union’s members in Lordstown, Ohio, are sounding the alarm on severe cuts to auto workers’ wages as a result of the Biden administration’s push to steer automakers towards EVs, enticing them with federal subsidies.

Money that is going, according to Fain, to well-connected and well-heeled investors and executives. Welcome to Democrat-Socialism, Shawn, and the end game of all communist revolutions. Tell the people you have their back and then stand on it to perpetuate your wealth and power.

You are a union boss. Didn’t you read your Sergey Nechayev?

 

“The only form of revolution beneficial to the people is one which destroys the entire State to the roots and exterminates all the state traditions, institutions, and classes… Our task is terrible, total, universal, and merciless destruction.”

Sergey Nechayev’s Revolutionary Catechism inspired Marxists from Vladimir Lenin to Saul Alinsky to our manifold of Modern Leftists. It is the objective of Cloward-Piven. It is the goal of rampant inflation and the rising cost of water, electricity, and energy. The open border. Medicine and Public Health Policy since Wuhan. To break every institution, including the government, by wrecking them from within or making them unreliable to those who rely on them.

 

The sh!tty economy directly results from Democrat policy, and that’s not changing. They are actively destroying every institution, including yours. And not to put too fine a point on it, but Ford CEO Jim Farley is closer to being an approved Oligarch of the New America than you. He needs workers to build cars, and at this point, they will be union workers. And Ford appears to be all-in on the EV transition despite losing billions annually becasue the Pfeds are prepared to print money to keep Ford propped up, which – as you have already guessed will not be to protect union jobs.

 

The United Auto Workers (UAW) is going after President Joe Biden’s so-called “green energy” agenda for its wage-cutting outcomes while showering billions in American taxpayer money on the three largest automakers in the nation: Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis.

 

To which I added,

 

And auto workers should be concerned, though not just about how the EV market might be impacting wages and jobs. Ever since The Green New Deal landed inside the DC Beltway, the Dems have not been shy about their plans. Privately owned automobiles are an outdated concept whose shelf life has reached its end. The UAW’s workers are clinging to obsolete skills (learn to code, right?).

And EVs are not the future of individual transportation. They are the means by which personal transportation will be limited to the wealthy and connected, and you won’t have auto plants all over the nation to meet that need. You will have a few, run by the approved oligarch, using increased automation.

 

And EVs are never going to get any cheaper. The US has to buy them (mostly) from China, which controls the mines and much of the components and assembly of bits used in Lithium packs. And we know there aren’t enough resources to build the electric future or replace its parts when they fail. Why do you think China is building coal plants to make “green” baubles for the West? They can throttle production at will, not that they will need that. At this pace, by 2035 or 2050, nothing will work, and they can walk in and take whatever they want.

And while all of that is a burden not yet borne, if you keep voting for Democrats, you will guarantee the end of your union and America.

 

 

The post Dem EV Priorities With Help From Dem Economic Priorities Trip Dem Union Priorities appeared first on Granite Grok.

Recently, a paraprofessional working at Mill Falls Charter School in Manchester spoke before school board members in Goffstown. As a resident of Goffstown, Lauren Doukas gave testimony in reference to a bulletin board that was hanging on the wall in the Goffstown school.

The bulletin board was challenged by some residents and parents for being overtly political, sexual, and representing only some of the students. After the bulletin board was removed, this set off a political battle where residents took sides over what was appropriate and what was not.

 

 

What caught many people who attended this meeting by surprise was an admission from Doukas and how they were treating kindergarten students who attended Mill Falls Charter School in Manchester.

As you can see from the video (below), Mill Falls makes sure that they are teaching kindergarten students about transgender pronouns.  At (39:00) Doukas informs the community that at Mill Falls, the kindergarten children are learning about pronouns and people and families of all structures. She did not mention if that included religious families who might have a different worldview.  This is being done whether you like it or not.

She mentions her support of parental rights as they apply to her family. But what about families who have a different worldview? This is where inclusiveness and diversity seem to hit a brick wall. All of the talk about inclusiveness and diversity ends when religious families or families with a different worldview mention that they don’t share her beliefs.

Doukas mentions how the bulletin board reflects one’s state of being and that it is not indoctrination. But one has to ask, where was the bulletin board that shows the state of being of the religious students who attend Mountainview Middle School? What about a bulletin board that shows the state of being for students from various cultures?  Immigrant families from Africa who have moved into central New Hampshire can hold sacred religious beliefs that differ from what was presented on the bulletin board. Are their religious beliefs embraced and supported by those who preach tolerance and inclusion?

She goes on to give credit to Mountain View for being one that supports inclusion. Well, maybe for one group, but certainly not for other groups of students. Religious students were not featured. That’s not inclusive at all.

Religious students are also in the protected class, and their viewpoints should be welcome and featured too. Maybe she should have asked for real inclusion in the district and erected a bulletin board for them, too.

Goffstown School Board Meeting

Doukas never mentioned how Mill Falls provides special accommodations for their religious kindergarten students whose parents do not subscribe to the transgender pronoun phenomenon. How are they treated in Mill Falls?

This idea of inclusion and appreciation for diversity lacks attention to students in other groups. In fact, religious families are often referred to as bigots and haters because they share religious views that are different.  That’s not tolerant at all.

As Representative Joe Alexander stated in the school board meeting at 13:00, there are laws that govern schools on sexual content available to children and a parent’s right to opt out of objectionable material.

No matter what Ms. Doukas would like to make available to children in public schools, they must first follow the law. If they are then going to claim inclusive status, then prove it. Don’t just make special accommodations for one group of students. These public schools are diverse and include traditional religious families, too. If you want to provide children with sexual content, there are laws that govern how that must be done.

 

The post Mill Falls Charter School: Transgender Pronouns for Kindergarten Students is a Priority appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you’ve been itching for a 15-minute beatdown of the world’s so-called public health authorities focused on their collusion and systemic failure during COVID – not once but twice – we’ve got your ticket.

Dr. Peter McCullough, a certified medical expert on the science of health and disease, has a few words for the WHY, NIAID, FDA, CDC, and others, and frankly, it’s glorious.  You can watch it on X, but we’ve got a local copy for you right here.

 

 

The post If You’ve Been Itching for a 15-Minute Beatdown of the World’s So-Called Public Health Authorities … appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Buses keep rolling. From Texas, Florida, and Arizona, the Governors are filling the buses with illegal immigrants and shipping them North. With destinations like the sanctuary cities of San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and New York, the southern Border States have had enough, spent too much, and are making a point in a dramatic fashion that gets some attention.

This influx of humanity is placing a burden of multiple magnitudes on these Northern cities, and their Mayors, all Democrats, are irate at Joe Biden and are putting pressure on him to finally stem the tide of illegals entering our country. Mayor Adams is finally seeing the light. This catastrophe is not the fault of Ron DeSantis or Greg Abbott. They are working to save what remains of their great states after nearly three years of failed Biden policies on the Border. It is fruitless to talk about Biden’s policies, for his only plan is to abolish the Border and let in millions of unvetted, unvaccinated illegals worldwide.

If the illegals formed a state, they would be the 15th largest state in our country. Over seven million people, and we do not know who they are, where they came from, or, worse, where they have gone. These people are given a piece of paper telling them to report for a hearing in three years and set free. Our government has already lost 85,000 minors who have probably fallen into illegal labor situations or, God forbid, the sex trade. America is the largest market for children for sex in the world. Let that sink in. And you wonder why none of the visitors to Epstein’s Island have been investigated.

Mayor Adams claims the migrant crisis will destroy New York City, and it is not hyperbole. Over 100,000 people are filling hotels, shelters, and temporary encampments. They are absorbing resources earmarked for needy New York residents who are now going without. Thousands of non-English speaking children are overcrowding the schools, and people are living on the streets with colder weather coming soon. The situation is not going to improve because there is no plan to solve the migrant flow. People want the Border closed, and the President is not listening.

Congresspeople Cortez and Nadler visited the Big Apple today and were shouted down by protestors as they both said the problem needs more Federal funding. There is no plan, but throw more cash at it, and the problem disappears. That is the Democrat solution to every crisis. They also kept referring to these people as Venezuelans. They obviously were playing to one voting block, as nobody knows where these people came from. They made fools of themselves and insulted us by saying we must embrace these people because we are all Americans. These people are anything but Americans. They are demanding work permits and driver’s licenses for all so these people can begin to support themselves. How about deportation orders and let them come back legally?

These people protesting today were not wearing MAGA hats. These people are New Yorkers who supported and helped Biden win his office. They are angry, and Democrats are losing these people. Finally, one protestor summed this up perfectly. He said the government shut down businesses and our lives for two years during the Pandemic. People had to skip food to buy school supplies for their children. These people are given shelter, food, cell phones, and cash; New Yorkers have seen enough. This day of anger in NYC is just the icing on the cake for the worst week in Joe Biden’s Presidency. He is going to the beach. See you Monday!

The post New York Has No Vacancies? Send Those Buses To Rehoboth Beach appeared first on Granite Grok.

If you’ve missed the ongoing legal ruckus over (former Democrat State Senator) Jeff Woodburn’s Domestic assault circus, it has been a wild ride. Post-conviction, Mr. Woodburn got the State Supreme Court to dismiss and remand his case because the trial court refused to admit certain evidence.

As a pre-trial for the new trial evolves, Woodburn has asked for evidence to be allowed while the State has requested that it not, and for good reason. Woodburn’s “evidence” amounts to proving Woodburn had, on several previous occasions, attempted to distance himself from conflict and that the alleged victim acted to prevent this. It is meant to reinforce the defendant’s claim that what he is accused of was self-defense, but his journal and other evidence document anger issues and own frustration with them.

The problem, however, is his proof.

 

 

The State Supreme Court, had they known, might have ruled differently, but the value of the evidence was not on trial. The trial court’s rejection of the evidence (or how it was rejected) was, and Woodburn won that battle but to no good end. The evidence the court rejected that got him his retrial has been rejected again on much more well-documented grounds.

 

 

If Woodburn is again convicted on any counts, he has nowhere to go but the pokey, community, or something suitable to a pasty white former Democrat lawmaker with liberal privilege. Or maybe just the conviction hung about his neck is adequate. He hasn’t run for public office again, which is a win for taxpayers.

But you can never know what might follow, though, at this point, I think they should call this case – which has dragged on for years – Woodburn vs. Woodburn.

 

 

The post Jeff Woodburn vs. Jeff Woodburn appeared first on Granite Grok.

The prevailing narrative is that the pandemic shutdowns affected student performance in public schools. As seen in our prior two articles, data from the Croydon, NH Village School, and statewide data from the New Hampshire Student Assessment System (NHSAS), the National Assessment of Educational Progress test do not support this narrative.

The data clearly shows that reading scores were decreasing well before the pandemic. Moreover, it also showed conclusively that fewer than half of NH’s students had been scoring proficient or better for decades.

In this article, we take an in-depth look at what happened to performance before and after the pandemic shutdowns in Vermont, using its statewide test, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), and the NAEP test.

Vermont students have taken the SBAC every year in grades 3 through 9 since 2015. The tests were not administered in 2020 because of the school shutdowns caused by the COVID pandemic. In 2021, the SBAC was optional. Scores for 2023 are not yet available. The VT Agency of Education did not respond to a request for this data. However, because VT changed to the Cognia test, it would be hard to compare the 2023 results to previous years’ SBAC scores.

The VT SBAC Reading chart (below) shows the percentage of students in grades 3 through 9 who performed at or above proficiency in reading from 2018 to 2022. In 2022, just over 40% of 3rd-grade students (bottom line in chart) were considered proficient or above in reading. That means 60% of students were reading below grade level, a full year after returning to in-person schooling.

 

 

Performance in 2021 was better than in 2022, which is hard to explain. The chart shows that pre-pandemic performance had been poor since at least 2018, with about 50% of 3rd-grade students (bottom line in the chart) scoring proficient or above in reading. Though a ten-point drop is pretty significant, the fact remains that about half of Vermont’s students were not able to read at grade level before the pandemic. The chart shows a steady decline since 2018 for most grades, with all of them doing poorly across the years.

As we know, student ability can’t be measured by just one test. So, as we did with New Hampshire, we will look at how Vermont’s students did on a national test.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, pronounced “nape”) is often called “The Nation’s Report Card.” Since 1969, NAEP has been designed and used by the education establishment to let everyone know how well the United States is educating its children. They report results for each state for grades 4 and 8.

According to this test, Vermont students are about average compared to other states.

Vermont has NAEP scores for grades 4 and 8 in reading and math since 2002. In reading, as shown in the NAEP Reading chart (below), the number of students reading at or above proficient for grades 4 (blue line) and 8 (orange line) hovered around 40% from 2002 to 2019.

 

 

The grade 8 scores started to go down in 2019, before the pandemic. While shutdown affected the grade 4 scores a little, the data shows that the scores have been poor for over 20 years. Since 2002, around 60% of Vermont’s students have not been able to read at grade level. In 2022, the number edged closer to 65%.

As with New Hampshire, Vermont’s data shows dismal proficiency rates that stretch back more than twenty years. That Vermont made its state test optional in 2021 complicates the picture because that testing cohort deviates from the norm. However, Vermont’s data does show that if the scores got worse, it wasn’t by much. This is important because the narrative that “things got worse” suggests that things were going fine before when they weren’t.

This story is part of a series where we show how the pandemic shutdowns in Vermont and New Hampshire affected student performance on state and national standardized tests. Prior installments in this series were published in the Eagle Times on September 9 and 12 and in Grok part 1 and part 2.

Next, we’ll take a look at test scores and reading instruction at Killington Elementary School in Killington, VT.

This article first appeared in the Eagle Times and was edited slightly.

 

The post How the Pandemic Shutdown Affected Student Performance: Vermont (part 3 of 8) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Fox News firing Tucker may be the best thing that ever happened to him. Unleashed from the restraint of being a media Moguls talking head, Tucker Carlson has been on a tear, ripping up the fruited plain with rants exposing the disconnects and corruption of American politics, and no just inside the Beltway.

 

Carlson took a trip to Michigan and had some choice words for Gretchen Wittmer and her ilk, but he didn’t stop there. Texas Governor Abbot got a lashing, and well deserved, it would seem. Attacks wielded with a news anchor’s acumen but with populist common-sense WTF semantics. YOu can do something but you won’t. What is wrong with you?

 

What do Gretchen Whitmer and Greg Abbot have in common? Unfortunately, quite a bit. pic.twitter.com/QCwk7371kJ

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) September 12, 2023

 

He’s not wrong about any of it, which is why every installment of Tucker on Twitter, sorry X (doesn’t roll off the tongue like it used to), gathers tens of millions of views. The guy is tearing it up, which got me wondering. Given the trajectory of his public musings, what if Trump asked him to be his VP?

I’m not sure he’d accept. He probably accepts that he can do a lot more outside than in, but is it a crazy idea to suggest it? If it is, then why not go here: how about Tucker Carlson as a Republican President’s press secretary? It would probably be a huge pay cut but talk about must-watch television.

 

 

The post VP Tucker Carlson? appeared first on Granite Grok.

On September 11, when the President should have been in New York, Pennsylvania, or Washington, D.C., honoring the victims of 9/11 and the many First Responders who, when the planes crashed, ran into and not away from danger, he was a continent away.

We have lost nearly as many First Responders who died from diseases resulting from the toxic environment they encountered when trying to save lives as those killed by the initial crashes and explosions—nearly 5,000 deaths due to three terrorist attacks. Instead, Joe Biden broke tradition and went to Alaska to address some troops with a speech highlighted by an ill-timed joke and an easily debunked lie.

By the end of the day, the anger over the President’s handling of the day boiled over. The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, notified Congress of an agreement between the Administration and the terrorist state of Iran. Under the terms of the deal, Iran and the United States would swap five prisoners, and we would unfreeze $6 Billion of Iranian money that America had seized. The money will be placed into banks under the control of Qatar. The timing of this deal is inappropriate and insulting to the American people.

According to John Kirby, Iran can only use the funds for humanitarian purposes, and Iran will have to satisfy specific requirements to the Qatar government to access the funds. This is where naive comes into play. The Iranian government has already declared the money is theirs, and they will use and spend it on what they want. Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and the Administration know the truth. Still, they do not want to admit they bought the release of five Americans and put a monetary value on every American head. On one of the most solemn days on our calendar, this Administration weakened our national security by buying the freedom of five unjustly incarcerated Americans by one of our most dangerous geopolitical foes. Is it great to have these Americans back home on American soil? Of course, but the timing and details of the deal could not be worse. John Kirby can stand in front of a mediocre group of White House reporters until he is blue in the face, and he will not be able to put a positive spin on this story.

When Kirby was asked about the safety of Americans traveling abroad, he referred them to the State Department website, where foreign countries are coded for their danger level. Iran is designated as a “D” level threat for Dangerous. Unfortunately, with the actions of Joe Biden, stepping outside our Borders (the ones we used to have) is now a danger for every American as we now have a $1 Billion price tag on our heads.

I say the Administration is naive, but I think it is worse than that. I think that Biden is complicit with every enemy nation you can name. Russia, China, Korea, and Iran are all getting favorable treatment from Biden at a time when he should be ratcheting up the pressure. Just like the tax dollars going to Ukraine, keep an eye on that $6 Billion, and you will undoubtedly see a check drawn against it and deposited into one of Biden’s twenty LLC accounts. This man and his family has to go down, and I hope, maybe blind faith, that this impeachment inquiry is the first step in the process

The post Inept, Disrespectful, And Naive appeared first on Granite Grok.

Pivotal in remaining a strong and credible party, you need to have the trust of your constituents. Without that trust within the bounds of the law, both the individual and the collective will be stifled, resulting in an enterprise unworthy of the name.

The Republican Party needs to rejuvenate its support base and overall credibility. Republican Party is on life support as it is today. It is no longer a mystery; the Republican Party has lost touch with its constituents and the American people. They don’t connect and don’t care. For example, the US Senate is not serving the intended role of protecting the individual states’ autonomy and authority. Senators view themselves as part of the national government, not as a defender of the state’s interest and sovereignty.

What do you think can be done? First and foremost, we must have term limits. Vital to the effort’s success is abandoning old suspicions, parochial thinking, and scheming for special privileges for any individual or group. Goodwill and work for the common good are required of all. This new beginning is a paradigm shift from the destructive ways of the past. There is much to be gained by all when justice and equity are not exclusive to the few. Justice in all its forms, as is the case with freedom, must be the guiding principle of our Republican Party. They don’t fight; they cave in.

This Party can’t even agree on a single bill to pass. A lack of unity and leadership has weakened this Party. Despite many promises to the American people, Obamacare is still alive and well. “For American voters expecting their Republican-dominated House and Senate and the White House to honor their years of repeal promises and repeal Obamacare. In a move that’s no surprise to anyone, the late John McCain voted against the embarrassingly named ‘Skinny Repeal,’ voted against his Party (or is it his Party?), and voted to keep Obamacare going.

Many people can no longer differentiate between the Democrats and the Republicans. Not to mention, this Party ultimately betrayed the American people during the Obama administration. They just watched and did nothing.

According to Rasmussen Reports, Republican voters are far more likely than Democrats to say their party bosses are out of touch with the voter base. Seventy-three percent of Republicans think their party leaders are out of step with the rank-and-file, the survey shows.

Republican Party has become one of the rich, for the rich, and has lost touch with people. The Party has lost its ability to govern despite having the majority in the House and Senate numerous times and Republican President. They have their agenda.

Time is of the essence; either do your job for which you were elected or resign so that we can have new blood injected into that Party. You can no longer function.

The post The Republican Party Is on Life Support appeared first on Granite Grok.

September is living up to its reputation as the peak month for Hurricanes. Storms are pouring off the west coast of Africa in rapid succession, Lee being the latest Hurricane, followed by TD 15, which is projected to be CAT3 when it reaches the Sargasso Sea in a few days.

 

Here is Tropical Depression 15, isolated from the radar map above. It currently has sustained winds of  35 mph, according to NOAA.

 

 

The track looks similar to Lee but a bit further out. Lee ran straight toward Georgia, then the dogleg right, and drifted east. Maine might have avoided the heavy rain if it had more time to sail further east.

This tropical depression (15) is pointed right at Washington DC, which, if I recall the commenters from a previous Hurricane Lee post, is where some readers thought the storm needed to land. I’m sure a few of them are saying, “Stay on target,” but what are the odds it does what Lee did with a slightly more north and easterly swing? Good to excellent. Between when I started this post and this morning, the projection did that exact thing.

 

 

There’s not much chance of it getting anywhere near us, but to NOAA’s credit, this year’s forecast will be much closer than the 2022 projections, which were just lousy. But how close will it have to wait until November?

Until then, it’s very active, and we’ll try to keep track of these things as they pile up in the Northern Atlantic and hope most of them are like Margot, who is still twirling about the middle of the ocean as a Tropical storm.

 

 

The post As Hurricane (Tropical Storm) Lee Finishes Its “Drive-By,” Who’s Next? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Despite massive support from legacy and social media, the political landscape is moving away from Democrats and Joe Biden, according to recent polls conducted by the Wall Street Journal, Gallup, and the Associated Press.

As of 2004, nearly a third of voters settled into either Republican, Democrat, or Independent categories.  As of this year, nearly fifty percent (49%) of Americans will vote as Independents, with the two major parties dropping down to twenty-five percent each.  Analysts believe this indicates implicit disapproval of the two-party system, where both parties have become more tribal and politically adversarial rather than beholden to voters and their needs.

The WSJ poll found the economy as the most important issue to all registered voters, especially Republicans.  From a list of thirty-three areas of concern ranging from immigration to far-left and far-right movements, climate change, and racial issues, the economy and immigration ranked the highest among all registered voters polled, which was consistent with registered Republicans.

The AP Poll, conducted by the University of Chicago on behalf of the Associated Press and Fox News, revealed these Independents still slightly favor Democrats to Republicans mainly due to lack of Republicans ability to clearly identify their plans to deal with the nation’s issues.  However, the trend shows the nation of Independents moving strongly in the direction of Republicans over the last two years, going from a 15% preference to Dems now down to just 4%.

Another dramatic realignment between the two parties is the shift in working-class voters to Republican.  Nine of the ten wealthiest districts in the US (mostly California, New York, and D.C.) still favor voting Democrat, however, the middle to lower-income voters align with conservatives.  Given the overwhelming concern with the economy, this bodes well for conservative candidates who can articulate winning strategies to improve the current cost of living woes.

Looking to the presidential candidates, we see a tie between Donald Trump and Joe Biden for approval and disapproval among registered voters.  Both candidates receive relatively low favorability at 39% “totally approve” rating.  However, Biden is overwhelmingly considered unfit to serve a second term with nearly three-quarters (74%) of the nation believing he is “too old” and sixty percent stating he is not “mentally fit” for the office.  Trump’s approval in these areas hovers around fifty percent favorability.

Among the other presidential hopefuls with significant approval are Ron Desantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who sees a 35% approval rating from Democrats but 49% from Republicans.  Kennedy’s approval among Democrat voters is only one percentage point ahead of Kamala Harris.  Other possible Democrat nominees, such as Gavin Newsome and Michelle Obama, were not mentioned.  Desantis’ approval among Republicans who will vote in the primary was higher than Trump’s in April of this year (84% to 78%) but has fallen behind as of August (75% to 70%).  National polls however show he still lags behind Trump by nearly 50 points as the Republican nominee, with the rest of the field even further back.

The recent indictments of Donald Trump reveal that one-third (33%) of Americans believe it is both politically motivated and without merit, while another third (34%) believe it is legitimate and not politically motivated, with another 22% saying it is legitimate but also politically motivated.  61% of Republicans believe it is illegitimate and politically motivated.  A breakdown of each indictment (1) taking classified documents and obstructing efforts to get them back (2) attempt to overturn the election (3) conspiracy to reverse the election, reveals virtually the same picture – a third each believing it’s illegitimate and political or legitimate and not politically motivated with roughly 70% of Republicans believing it’s the former.

The recent call to impeach Joe Biden sees 46% of registered voters strongly disapproving it, with another 32% in favor of it.  This may be as a result of impeachment fatigue, economic woes, and fears of resources wasted in Congress while the country and world are in apparent high states of turmoil and not because Joe Biden hasn’t done anything worthy of impeachment.  Why? 45-50% of those same voters believe Biden is either “corrupt” or did “something illegal”.  With the story relating to his son Hunter’s laptop, 34% of registered voters said they are less likely to vote for Biden if the allegations are true.

The war in Ukraine has become increasingly unpopular with all voters.  38% of Americans now believe we are “doing too much” to help the Ukrainians up from just 6% in March.

Analysis for a Joe Biden presidency

None of the numbers look good for Joe Biden to repeat as president of the United States.  The demographic numbers are all moving away from the Democratic party to either the middle or right of center.  Even his constituents overwhelmingly suggest he is either too old (74%) or mentally unfit (60%) and the evidence mounts daily as Biden famously wanders off both physically and verbally at nearly every public event.  With the Republican party now holding sway with the middle and lower-income voters and an economy moving Americans into that group daily, the picture looks bleak for another Biden term in office.  Even the defense of Biden by his media paratroopers hasn’t been able to sway public opinion to help retain legitimacy.  If you thought his purported record 81 million votes in 2020 was unlikely, it will take every act of political legerdemain known to man to prop him up again.

The anti-Trump strategy

The Democrats have made their strategy to defeat Donald Trump if he is the nominee, crystal clear.  Character assassination in the media, along with removal from the ballots in every state they can pull it off.  If prison doesn’t work, then some suggest an actual assassination, but we’ll have to wait and see.  As they did in 2020, the cable/tv media will mobilize yet again to denounce Trump 24/7. Facebook and Google will massage social media and internet traffic as much as humanly possible to impair Republican campaigns. 

They obviously don’t have a pro-Biden voter base, let alone favorability among all voters, so the tactic becomes “anyone but Trump.”  Toss in some lockdowns over a now weakening virus that really only threatens a tiny percentage of the population and a call for more mail-in ballots, and you can see the numbers hopping up like a bar graph in the middle of the night.  Sprinkle in some political mules to carry the load and put the teenage voter alongside the illegal immigrant voter, and you have the icing on the half-baked cake that is Democrat party legitimacy.

Whether the numbers show it, or you know it or not, Donald Trump and MAGA are an “existential threat to our Democracy”.  Therefore, the ends justify the means.

Buckle up, folks. The road to the 2024 elections is looking to be a very bumpy ride.

 

The post Polls Of American Voters Shows Major Shift To Independent and Anti-Biden appeared first on Granite Grok.

So the Biden-Regime has indicted the Regime’s Figurehead-President’s son. The purpose of this indictment? To protect the “Big Guy,” the Regime’s Figurehead-President. The crimes in the indictment are the handful of crimes committed by Hunter that did NOT involve the Big Guy. Get it?

Federal grand jury indicts Hunter Biden on three gun charges + could face up to 25 years in prison if found guilty of the felony counts. @RepJamesComer said the charges fell short, “This is the one crime he committed that you can't tie Joe Biden into.” pic.twitter.com/Ko8d8T6EkD

— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) September 14, 2023

Don’t be fooled.

Today's indictment of Hunter Biden for gun felonies is just more coverup by Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who has protected the Bidens for years.

Weiss, handpicked by both Democrat home-state senators in Delaware, let the statute of limitations expire on…

— Mike Davis (@mrddmia) September 14, 2023

OPINION: The #HunterBiden Gun Indictment Is A Distraction Designed To Refocus Media Off Of @JoeBiden Selling His Elected Office! pic.twitter.com/841ZaPPu43

— John Basham (@JohnBasham) September 14, 2023

The post The Hunter Indictment … It’s All About Protecting The Big Guy appeared first on Granite Grok.

In true Democrat fashion, Chicago is proposing a government solution to address a problem it created. Local markets and grocery chains, unable to protect their employees or customers, or make a profit where “petty” theft is not prosecuted, have pulled up stakes. Chicago’s mayor to the rescue?

 

All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options. We know access to grocery stores is already a challenge for many residents, especially on the South and West sides. A better, stronger, safer future is one where our youth and our communities have access to the tools and resources they need to thrive. My administration is committed to advancing innovative, whole-of-government approaches to address these inequities.

 

Did you run the capitalist markets out so of town you could socialize groceries, or is this just you responding to a problem created by Democrat policy that coincidentally socializes food shopping?

 

“The city of Chicago is reimagining the role government can play in our lives by exploring a public option for grocery stores via a municipally owned grocery store and market,” Pawar said. “Not dissimilar from the way a library or the postal service operates, a public option offers economic choice and power to communities.”

 

Any government anything in Chicago will ultimately cost and waste billions, so that’s baked in regardless of the claims of city officials, but that’s not what I want explained. My question is whether the city-owned stores will tolerate the rampant unprosecuted shoplifting that drove other businesses away. And if not, how could you possibly suggest that taxpayers won’t be on the hook for the losses on top of the cost of doing business, and if they are, why wouldn’t that just encourage more theft?

 

HT | Breitbart

The post Will Chicago’s Proposed City-Owned Grocery Stores let Criminals Shop Lift? (Which is Why the Old Stores left) appeared first on Granite Grok.

Kirk Cameron’s recently published children’s book, Pride Comes Before the Fall, is a charming story about the dangers inherent in being overly prideful rather than humble.  While some detractors have labeled this book by the former child TV star as “anti-gay” because of its message about pride, Cameron prefers to call it “pro-humility.”

If you live in the state of New Hampshire, however, don’t go to your local public library to get a copy of this book because you won’t find it unless you live in one particular town.*  You’ll have a much easier time finding Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir, which is available at more than half of New Hampshire’s 232 libraries, or Juno Dawson’s “how to” guide, This Book Is Gay, held by fifty-two.

Library users have a better than even chance of finding critical race theory guru Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be an Antiracist available in any given public library in New Hampshire. But if you want to read Why I Stand, the autobiography of Isaac Washington, the NBA player who refused to kneel when his teammates chose to do so, you’ll have a hard time getting your hands on it; only two libraries in the entire state include it in their collections.

A similar situation is evident when evaluating library holdings related to the controversial issue of climate change. Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science, a book by Australian geologist and former University of Melbourne professor Ian Plimer (accused of being a “climate change denier”), is nowhere to be found in New Hampshire’s public library system.  Meanwhile, The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, an obviously ghostwritten treatise, is owned by seventy-three libraries statewide.

These are just a few of the head-shaking facts I found when searching the New Hampshire State Library’s interlibrary loan (ILL) database, the purpose of which is to facilitate the sharing of resources among the state’s public libraries.  While my information is limited to one small purplish state, it reflects a troubling situation that is likely a problem throughout the country: public library collections are favoring woke material over conservative books, and this begs the question, “Who is really banning whom?”

The main definition provided for the verb “ban” on Dictionary.com is “to prohibit, forbid, or bar.”  All these words suggest an action that will prevent something from happening, perhaps even involving a rule or law.  The epithet “book banner” should similarly, therefore, describe someone who will prevent the reading of a particular book or books.  Increasingly nowadays, “book banner” is a term used to describe parents who object to certain books being shelved in the children’s room of their local public library.  Such parents, however, are not actually prohibiting anyone from reading anything.  They just want some books on sensitive subjects regarding sex and gender moved to other areas in the library so that children are not exposed to this material without parental consent.  Most of these parents recognize the right of adults to have access to these titles, including parents who might choose to have their children read them.  The reality is that the term “book banner” is being used as a scare tactic by woke librarians and library organizations to mislead the public into believing that some parents are ushering in a neo-Nazi society that will ultimately lead to the throwing of books into raging bonfires.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

In order for a book to be truly banned, it must be impossible to read; you cannot get it anywhere, not in your local library, not at another library, not at your local bookstore, not even on Amazon.  Such banning requires government suppression such as that which did actually occur during the Nazi era in Germany.  What parents are doing in libraries is not banning books.

The only way to completely avoid what is erroneously being called book banning today is to buy every single book that is currently being published.  That is obviously impossible considering that the average public library, especially in small-town New Hampshire, has limited shelf space with room for only a few tens of thousands of books.  Obtaining most books not held by your local library, however, is actually quite easy thanks to interlibrary loan (ILL).  The existence of ILL should negate the book-banning argument because this service, which allows patrons to get just about any book they might want, is supposed to prevent the prohibition that characterizes a ban.

There’s an insidious problem with the ILL system, however, because it does not allow patrons to get certain books, and those prohibited books are often conservative titles, as reflected by the examples I have offered above.  Conversely, it is very easy to get what many would describe as woke titles.  Analyzing the results of my various ILL database searches suggests a troubling answer to the question, “Who’s banning whom?”

The bottom line is that it is much easier to obtain left-leaning woke material via ILL and much harder to get more conservative titles.  The situation reflected in the ILL database of a purplish state like New Hampshire speaks volumes about the lack of balance between different ideologies—an imbalance that likely exists in other states.  The lack of conservative titles available through ILL is a direct result of the purchasing decisions made by individual public libraries, decisions that inordinately favor woke titles.  It is a situation that is also reflected in new book displays at public libraries, which are far more likely to highlight left-leaning titles than conservatively themed ones.

A few years ago, I requested that my local public library purchase a new book—Michael Knowles, Amazon’s #1 bestseller Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds.  This book is about the weaponization of political correctness, and it is written by a well-known conservative writer, so not surprisingly, my request was denied. The library justified this denial by claiming that there were no positive reviews of this book.  While I was easily able to find a lot of positive feedback online about this title, librarians, following the mandates of the American Library Association, only consider reviews in left-leaning publications like Library Journal and The New York Times.

When a book requested by a tax-paying citizen is not selected for a public library collection, this situation could be considered a “book ban” using the same twisted meaning that the woke left is pushing. In an article entitled “Is It ‘Banning’ To Reject the Book in the First Place,” Neal McCloskey asserts:

“…it is just as much ‘banning’ for public institutions to reject books in the first place as to remove them later on. The ultimate result is the same: not making a book available for the public to borrow. Of course, this is not really banning, which would be to prohibit people from reading a book at all—making it illegal to purchase or possess—not refusing to let people borrow it for free. But if people want to misapply the term, they should misapply it equally.”

While the existence of the ILL system, which facilitates rather than prohibits the obtaining of books, should negate the “book banner” argument, at the same time an analysis of selected library holdings reveals that the left is actually “banning” books (using their own distorted definition) rather than the conservatives that they hypocritically criticize.  So let’s get the woke librarians and opponents of true intellectual freedom to stop using the term “book ban” unless it truly applies to the situation.  This emotionally charged term has been misused long enough.  It’s time for logic and common sense to ban the egregious misuse of the pejorative epithet “book banner” and to stop demonizing concerned parents by labeling them with this derogatory term.

 

This article originally appeared on New Hampshire State Representative Arlene Quaratiello’s Substack newsletter “No Shushing Now: Exposing Today’s Woke Libraries.”  Subscribe for free at arlenequaratiello.substack.com.  

The post Who’s Banning Whom? – The Hypocrisy of Being Called a “Book Banner” appeared first on Granite Grok.

During the Summer of Love (2020), Democrats demanded you support Black Lives Matter. Democrat politicians willingly defunded city police forces in the name of protecting minorities. Inner-city crime (predictably) skyrocketed, so Dem DAs hid that hockey stick (on paper) by not calling a long list of crimes… crime.

But it still looks like crime to the minorities trapped in those neighborhoods. At the same time, the leaders of Black Lives Matter took the billions donated to BLM to protect them and moved to peaceful white suburbs while inner-city blacks watched that crime drive away businesses and jobs.

Democrats, who made all of this possible, aren’t taking any responsibility; in fact, they’ve lined up a new scapegoat.

 

A recent editorial column in The New York Times, “Kia and Hyundai Helped Enable a Crime Wave. They Should Pay for It,” has been part of a spate of national and local media stories blaming the massive surge in car thefts on the Korean automaker. (Kia is owned by Hyundai.)

A number of blue cities beset by crime and auto thefts have decided to sue the automakers following the success of a class-action lawsuit earlier this year. On the list of cities suing Kia and Hyundai are Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, and New York.

The contention here is that it’s the fault of the South Korean car companies for making some of their vehicles too easy to steal.

 

Kia and Hyundai (same company) have made moves to improve anti-theft security, but Democrats have set their heart on treating cars like guns. The thing is the problem, not the person, and it is not the Left’s fault for making crime pay. These self-stealing cars are to blame, as is the company that made them, which only tells me that Hyundai isn’t donating enough to Democrats.

I’m sure the Left has other motives, but the root of the problem is those damn Dems. Chicago was a warzone before BLM, with nothing but Democrats to blame. They run the city. They run and set policies for the police department. They fund, defund, or trample on cops, making it harder to get anyone to do that job. And it has been that way for decades.

There is no one else to blame for whatever happens in Chicago but the Democrat party where Black Lives Don’t Matter, not even to black Democrat politicians. Oh, sure, maybe when they get started, but The Windy City Political Machine swallows them up or spits them out.

Hyundai didn’t disarm everyone except those who could afford security and the criminals. They aren’t responsible for going soft on crime. Democrats did that.

Here’s Omni Ceren, writing at X in response to some left-wing babbling nonsense about car thefts in Chicago.

 

Why would Kia and Hyundai do this? https://t.co/zNqS06vETa pic.twitter.com/YwaLbfqRja

— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) September 6, 2023

 

In related car news, beginning with the Dem party-sponsored riots, carjackings in Chicago went up 134% from 2019 to 2020. Those are cars stolen from people still in them, and that number has not much declined. Since 2020, the average reported annual number of carjackings is 1645, more than double the three-year average before 2020.

 

 

Did Hyundai do that too?

Is the carmaker also responsible for the decline in carjacking arrests, which dropped from nearly 10% of the criminals responsible to about 6%?

C’mon, man, explain that away. And not just in Chicago. Every city (or state) run by Democrats will encounter this sort of deflection. Burlington, Vermont, has recently begun its death spiral into the toilet of systemic Democrat rule, and we’ve been following that in real-time.

It’s a disease that starts with (d), with only one treatment. Vote regularly and not for Democrats. But the other thing they can’t seem to escape is the belief that, at some point, all this misery will end, and things will get better. Sorry. Chicago is about as good as that gets, and your future looks much more like those even more dangerous Cities Marc told us about in Mexico.

That is the future of progressivism. San Francisco’s poop and needle map, declining tourism, rising crime, and bigger budgets that make the few fat, safe, and happy and leave everyone else with less, and not just becasue someone stole their Hyundai.

 

 

 

The post Democrats Blame Car Maker for Rise in Auto Thefts to Distract From Their Crappy Record on Crime appeared first on Granite Grok.

In New Hampshire the RINO problem is spelled S-U-N-U-N-U. In Texas it’s spelled B-U-S-H. Here’s Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Impeachment-Lawyer torching the Bushies. If you don’t want to watch the entire video, start at 1:15.

The post Must See … Ken Paxton’s Impeachment Lawyer Says Bush Era In Texas Has Ended And Tells Bushies To Go Back To Maine appeared first on Granite Grok.