Controlled Programming

 

By Gretchen Garrity

Tuesday night (March 19, 2024) there was a Nixa School Board Candidate Forum. It was hosted by the Nixa Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) and the Nixa Teachers Association (NTA). Held in the Media Center, the forum was well attended.

The sponsors had selected questions and given them to the candidates ahead of the forum. Therefore, the candidates' answers were about as vanilla as they could get. They were canned. They were rehearsed. I'm not blaming the candidates. Who wouldn't want to be spared inconvenient questions, or questions that one had no answer for? Who would want to be confronted by an upset parent or voter?

The forum was what is called controlled programming. You, the voter, have no voice (unless you managed to get a submitted question chosen and even then you couldn't talk). If you arrived at the meeting early enough to meet and shake hands with the candidates, you might have been able to ask them a question. Or, if you lingered afterwards you might have gotten a question in. 

But the formal process of a citizen squaring off in public with a declared candidate, a citizen positioned as an equal able to query and expect answers from the person who is asking for their vote, was missing.

In general, these forums are how the System checks off boxes. Public meeting? Check. Candidate forum? Check. Voter information? Check. Public duty? Check. 

It's all for show.

How much is really learned about the candidates? Having sat through a couple of these types of events, the candidates pretty much said the same things as at the other times. The forum last night was recorded. Whether it was live-streamed or will be released online I don't know. If it was live-streamed or released, I would've saved the time and energy of being a mere spectator needed to fill the audience.

I had questions. They weren't the questions in the prearranged forum. They were tough questions I wanted to ask two of the candidates. 

A question for current school board president/candidate Josh Roberts: "You mentioned that the school district is currently consulting with a psychologist to decide whether to provide an on-campus psychologist to teachers. Can you tell me what has changed in the last decade or so that would warrant teachers needing a psychologist on campus?"

A question for school board candidate Megan Deal: "Can you give your opinion of trauma-based education?" And a followup, "Would you agree that parents should be provided an opt-out form if they decide they don't want their children participating in any type of data collection via surveys, questionnaires or evaluations that refers to their child's feelings or beliefs or attitudes, especially those relating to sexual behavior, orientation, or gender identity?"

Civic participation in the election process is so important that events like the PTO/NTA forum ultimately prove unhelpful. What has happened to debates, and open forums, where voters can get a real idea of the candidates' suitability for public office? To preempt questions from the citizens and give candidates the questions ahead of time is a disservice to the community when there is no other avenues for public discourse.

We are being controlled by a managerial class of government workers and their associates who may not even be aware that the processes they implement are not in the spirit or letter of a free exchange of ideas. Citizens deserve to be able to interview the candidates in order to determine which one best deserves their vote.

I would ask the Nixa PTO and NTA to change their format during the next election and allow a period of time for the citizens to actually participate in the forum. Allow questions that might bring up uncomfortable subjects such as Social Emotional Learning and Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and how those agenda--implemented from both the federal and state level in our local schools--are causing behavioral issues in students.

Instead of calling for more social workers and psychologists and more government programs, perhaps a truly open forum would allow citizens to engage on a level that would actually bring both enlightenment and change to our school boards and ultimately benefit the students and staff.

I'm inserting this video of an interview of Abigail Shrier, author of Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up, to give you an idea of how important ideas are not being shared with our candidates, or others in the audience. It's fascinating, and our community needs to know that there is a very different narrative to the one we are exposed to by the System, which is always and only a call for more programs and more staff:

One last point. We the People of Christian County is the only group I know of (please tell me if you know of others), that had local school board candidates come to speak...and take unvetted questions from the citizens. I would say a couple of the candidates were probably sweating by the time they got out of there, but they came and took questions. Thanks to Josh Roberts and Megan Deal of Nixa, and to Jason Shaffer in Ozark and Edmund Unger in Sparta. And a big thanks to We the People of Christian County.

Get Over the Paradigm

 

The Problem with Friends

 

From: Ozarktigers.org

 

By Gretchen Garrity

The oft-repeated line that the Missouri Legislature has a Republican super majority is a terrible hindrance to the truth of the matter. When some Republican legislators vote, on average, about 50% of the time with the Democrats, that is not a super majority of Republicans. 

That is called the Uniparty. And the Uniparty's interests do not align with the vast majority of citizens in Missouri who vote (often vainly) for Republicans who hopefully represent their interests.

This is also a problem on the local level with school boards and other elected offices. Uniparty influence easily reaches down to locally-elected positions. How else are their vast interests going to be implemented in local schools, health boards, city councils and libraries?

Citizens need to awaken to the understanding that the candidate or official you have known for years, who attends your church, whose business you frequent, or whose children go to school with your children, may not be the best person for the local school board or city council.

It is vital that you become educated on how they view the world, how they will or have vote(d), and what organizations and individuals they are affiliated with. For instance, the Chamber of Commerce is not what it used to be. It has been co-opted by globalist interests that seek to implement worker programs in the schools. They are more interested in worker bees than an educated populace.

Many local schools are deeply intertwined with the local chambers of commerce. School board members, past and present, and even superintendents are members of the local chamber of commerce. They represent the public/private partnerships that purport to have a mutually beneficial relationship that helps students as well as the chamber. 

Think.

The chamber is a business-oriented entity. It desires what most benefits businesses in the area. Do the benefits of a culinary program outweigh the negative aspects of turning a school into a business that churns out workers and not educated citizens who can reason and determine their own future?

There are plenty of culinary schools around. Why start a program in a high school? Ask yourself the hard questions. Who benefits most from a bunch of kids that know how to work in hospitality, typically a relatively low-income career? Why aren't schools turning out kids who can read well, write well, and do mathematics? The scores are awful in many local districts, yet programs that ultimately benefit business are an expanding focus. Why?

On a similar note, David Rice has written an excellent article about Dustin Kirkman, a candidate for the Ozark School District School Board. Rice asks some important questions and he exposes some important information. His article deserves to be shared around.

From his article: "Dustin Kirkman has made questionable statements about schools, has supported two men who had felony charges against them (and in Christian County, they received a slap on their wrists), and belongs to an organization that does good and services, but leans left and doesn’t believe in absolute truth. Even the ancient Greeks understood truth better than Rotarians seem to understand it."

Incidentally, there will be a radio spot at 91.1 FM KSMU tomorrow at noon (March 19, 2024) with Ozark School Board candidates sponsored by the Informed Voter Coalition (Show Me Christian County).

"Bondemic" Bond(age)

 Retha Holland was was a guest with Kyle Wyatt of All Out Law on KSGF 104.1 this morning. The subject was the "bondemic" that our school districts are attempting to impose on taxpayers. Take a listen. Clever, Springfield, Nixa, and Ozark are all mentioned.

Holland explains how schools propose more bonds just as previous bonds are due to be paid off, basically keeping taxpayers on a rolling schedule of never-ending debt. Always couched as "for the children," these bonds are often 20-year obligations, which means that performing arts center for today's students will be paid for by those same students as they join the workforce in years to come.

Take a look at your ballot on April 2. Chances are you will see a proposed school bond. After listening to Wyatt and Holland you will understand that all is not always as it seems with school bond debt.

The Art Club Movie

 

 

This is a must watch documentary about a family whose lives were turned upside down when their daughter's school began transitioning her without their knowledge. It all began with the Art Club.

"Kevin Lundberg, along with the Lee family, have spent the last year producing this first-hand account of their family’s experience with public school indoctrination and the transgender social contagion.

This film takes an intimate look at this important issue, incorporates expert testimony, and offers advice for any parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or friend to protect the children in their lives and stand up for truth."

Link to the film on YouTube. It is also available on Rumble.

There is also a companion website: Stop Gender Ideology.

Saturday Screening of Eric Metaxas Film

 

The Politics of Compliance

 James Lindsay knocks it out of the park in this 15-minute talk on how Maoism is being forced upon us through the "politics of compliance."

If you have been told that you have to adhere to a narrative of non-partisanship, that you have to be positive in all interactions with the opposition, that you can't say certain things even if they're true, then you are a victim of the politics of compliance. Watch to the end for Lindsay's antidote:

The Politics of Compliance, or how Maoism works in practice, as given at the fifth International Crisis Summit in Washington, D.C., at the end of February. It should feel uncomfortably familiar and gratefully clarifying.pic.twitter.com/PobU0qqczR

— James Lindsay, number one Gay Studies author (@ConceptualJames) March 12, 2024

It's All Connected

From: EveryLibrary

By Gretchen Garrity

 The intrepid Dan Kleinman, founder of the World Library Association and author of the blog Safe Libraries, has exposed yet another aspect of how the American Library Association (ALA) and its sister organizations like EveryLibrary reach into local communities to undermine their values and indoctrinate children.

Their latest effort is called "Fight for the First!" which is designed to get activists, students, and citizens behind an effort to "protect" the First Amendment. To the ALA, the First Amendment means that children have the right to read smut. They have the right to find it all over the shelves of the children's section. They have a right to have it hanging it out in the teen section like little mental bombs to confuse children and deprive parents of their rights to curate what their children see, and when they see it.

According to Kleinman:

"You know, if ALA is bribing local acolytes with money to affect local political issues, shouldn't the public be able to obtain Freedom of Information Act requests from ALA, FTRF, EveryLibrary even if they aren't government bodies?  It's Sunshine Week, so I'm asking.  Anyone know?  All this money is being spent to sway public law.  Isn't the public entitled to see this?

Nowadays the method of bribery (but not the bribes themselves) is out in the open, and its detailed.  Money.  Consulting.  Online fundraising tools.  Media attention.  Training and resources "that you need to win."  And by "win," ALA means the community loses.  All free.  

 

It's all a fake facade, all astroturf.  'Nearly 100 communities have launched campaigns against book bans.'  Click on the links in the ALA/EveryLibrary tweets to see if your own community has been corrupted with ALA bribery.  Mine has."

 

Go here to read it all and see what kind of support is given to local activists to usurp our community institutions: ALA Details Bribes to Convince Governments to Sell Out Children

 

IT'S HERE, TOO 

And what do you know, Christian County has its own start up group, The Nixa First Amendment Defense Group, aka U-turn in Education:

 

From: Fight for the First

U-turn in Education has been very active in opposing the relocating of materials unsuitable for children out of both the public library and local school libraries. In fact, the name of the individual who has signed on to "Fight for the First!" is a local parent affiliated with U-Turn in Education. She was quoted in 2022 in a News-leader article: "Jeanne Coburn, a parent and part of the U-Turn group, said she supports parents being actively involved in schools and the education of the their children. But, she resents parents pushing to restrict or remove books from an entire library.

"It's a parent's right to decide what their children are exposed to," Coburn said. "But it's not some (other) parent's right to decide what my child is going to be exposed to."

https://x.com/EveryLibrary/status/1767536291946639380?s=Apparently, Coburn doesn't understand that placing explicit, vulgar, and other such books in a school or public library IS giving others the right to expose your child to them. None of these books are banned. They are widely available elsewhere. Parents have a reasonable expectation that a taxpayer institution will follow community standards and leave such books to parental guidance on their own time and their own dime.

BACK TO THE ALA AND EVERYLIBRARY

The ALA has thrown everything into the "Free Speech" bucket. Granted, it gets traction with unaware citizens. However, there are enough activated community members in many areas who understand the lies inherent in the ALA agenda.

It has nothing to do with free speech. It has everything to do with the Marxist fist you see in the tweets linked in Kleinman's article. If the ALA and its allies in libraries cannot get their agendas into the hands of children, they won't get the revolution they are seeking.

Demoralizing children and youth is a feature, not a bug. If it wasn't a huge deal to the Marxists, they wouldn't be pushing so hard to make sure Critical Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion brainwashing is in the schools and public libraries.

The dots all connect. This is a top-down operation that citizens in Christian County are experiencing. Why did RTWO receive a mountain of gibberish data when requesting public information about communication between the ALA and its subsidiaries and the Christian County Library last year?

 

Watch on TikTok

Moses the "Superintendent"

 

Detail of a 19th-century wood engraving by Frederick Richard Pickersgill

David Rice does a great job of exposing the worldview of Nixa School Board candidate Megan Deal, who recently spoke at a local meeting. It is vitally important to understand where candidates are coming from.

They can say many right things, they can be Christians, they can be articulate and pleasant. But if their basic understanding of the world is not in line with your values as a voter, you have a decision to make.

In order to really get at their true opinions, you have to spend time digging. Rice does that. He's showing the reader what the press will not--the truth.

From his article:

"[Megan Deal] spoke alongside other school board candidates and she talked about the emotional and mental health needs of the students who are being overlooked by the system. In other words, she claimed she was looking for the marginalized children in schools. 

She seems to be focused on her narrowly focused project of finding the students during relaxed times at school (like lunch or transitioning from classroom to classroom). She thinks the board should be there speaking to the students during those periods and learning from the overlooked (marginalized) students.

She also spoke about being like Aaron to Moses, trying to lean on her Christian background for her candidacy. She referenced Exodus 17:12-13, when Aaron and Hur lifted Moses’ arms so that God’s power could still work through him. She described the school board trustees as the Aaron to the Superintendent’s Moses."

Read the whole thing here: Can we Trust Megan Deal to be a Nixa School Board Trustee?

Skewing the Stats

 

"There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- Benjamin Disraeli

By Gretchen Garrity

We the People of Christian County held a candidate forum in Nixa on March 4, 2024, where an oft-repeated statistic was shared with citizens by Nixa School Board President and candidate Josh Roberts. He said, "We’re fiftieth in the nation, fiftieth in teacher pay. It’s embarrassing, but the local community--we pay more than most other communities--so we are doing our part. It needs to come from the state and federal level to increase teacher pay and not from your pocket.” Roberts was wise to read the prevailing winds, since local taxpayers are increasingly fed up with property tax increases for schools.

Currently, total funding for public schools in Missouri looks like this from the Missouri Budget Project:

Click on image for clarity

 As you can see, local property taxes make up a very large percentage of funding for government schools compared to national percentages. Even though, according to the Missouri Constitution, "Art. IX, Sec. 1(a). Free public schools...the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law."

DEAD LAST?

But we are going to concentrate on the startling statistic that Roberts shared. How can Missouri be so terribly low in salaries for teacher pay? Dead last? As everyone knows, statistics can be manipulated to show just about anything. Before we go on, ask yourself where did this stat originate?

If you go looking for it you will find it widely reported in the press: "Missouri ranks last in nation for average teacher starting salary." The "News" has helped to spread this narrative, which the linked article sources as the NEA, the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the United States. Here is the Missouri NEA's Salary Benchmarks and Rankings. Not light reading at almost 200 pages, and who can trust them?

This very short video (one minute) shares how government schools are funded:

 

According to the Show Me Institute in an article titled "Breaking: The Actual Starting Teacher Salary According to DESE," by James V. Shuls, “The NEA report calculates the average starting salary of Missouri’s more than 500 districts. It counts small, low-paying school districts the same as it counts large, higher-paying school districts.

If the Middle Grove School District, which according to the Missouri State Teachers Association is the only district to start teachers at the state minimum of $25,000 and has just 35 students, were to hire one teacher, and the Parkway School District, with more than 17,000 students, were to hire 20 teachers at the starting salary of $44,250, the NEA report would count each district once and say the average starting salary was just $34,625. In reality, the average of those 21 new teachers would be $43,333. This is a difference of more than $8,700.”

“The NEA reports Missouri’s starting salary as $33,234. But what is Missouri’s actual average starting teacher salary?

According to data I have obtained from DESE, the average regular term salary for a first-year teacher in Missouri was $38,367.33 in 2022. This figure was provided directly by DESE after my request. The increase of more than $5,000 would move Missouri up to 37th on the NEA report.”

Do read the whole thing (not long).

There are numerous sites with statistics that rank Missouri anywhere from the bottom to somewhere in the middle of the pack of fifty states:

Education Data Initiative

USA Facts

Congressional Research Service

Missouri School Rankings

Study (teacher salaries by state)

Zip Recruiter (Teacher salaries in Missouri. This is fascinating since this site has no educational agenda)

Zip Recruiter (Teacher salaries by state. Here Missouri ranks 21)

Lastly, as you look at the statistics from the different organizations, you will see that often the differences in salary are only a few hundred dollars from state to state.

As long as we allow the narrative to be about dollars alone as the major comparative, taxpayers will keep taking the hit through manipulation by both the news and school districts. 

What about academic scores? What about cost of living? What about each community's differing needs and wants?

In an article titled "Follow the Money" by Susan Pendergrass, the question is asked, "Do you ever wonder where more than $250,000 spent on a classroom of 20 students goes? So did we—so we built a website to help answer this question."

The website is excellent and helps citizens to understand more about the labyrinth of school spending in Missouri.

Benefit Packages and NGOs, oh my!

 David Rice has written an excellent article regarding questionable benefits packages and payouts in the Ozark School District. Also a great exposure of the NGOs that have undue influence on school districts, robbing them of local control.

From the article: 

"The School Board adopted the "PRIME CHOICE® Plan" offered by Precision Retirement Group, which allows public employers to convert certain forms of compensation like accumulated sick leave, vacation time, and incentive payments into contributions to either a medical trust called the "PRIME Plan" or special deferred compensation plans like 401(a) or 403(b) accounts. Copies of the Prime Plan are at the end of the article.

The materials promote these conversions as allowing tax-free reimbursements for retiree health expenses in the PRIME Plan trust, or opportunities to defer federal and state taxes in the deferred compensation plans. They also advertise eliminating FICA tax obligations for both the employer and employee.

While portrayed as benefits for employees, such specialized retirement plans allowing favorable tax treatments on back-end payouts have been criticized by some as forms of excessive "golden parachutes" for highly-compensated public officials and administrators."

Well worth reading, with links galore to get you up to speed on the issues. 

Clever School District Bond -- Heads Up!

 

Meet the Candidates!

 

Event Rescheduled

 

The Back to Education Forum is rescheduled to Fall 2024. Details to follow as plans move forward.

The Library's Little Tyrannies

 

Library Executive Director Renee Brumett

 

By Gretchen Garrity

At the February 27, 2024 Christian County Library Board of Trustees meeting, citizens were once again faced with a board president who appears to be setting up a narrative regarding public comments.

Quick Background

Since December 2022, the library board has been taken to task by citizens who have requested that books with inappropriate material be relocated out of the children’s section of the library. This material runs the gamut from early sexualization of children, indoctrination of children into Marxist agendas through Social Emotional Learning, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Critical Race Theory, and LGBTQ themes and gender ideology. These are the same issues that parents of public school children are facing in their school libraries and curricula.

The library board and staff have resisted these requests. Following the far left agenda of the American Library Association (ALA) and its member chapter the Missouri Library Association (MLA), the local library has been nearly unresponsive to the requests of taxpayers.

Citizens are not giving up, and the library board is met every month with citizens asking for recourse to protect children. It is now March 2024. Two new trustees have been appointed and a third one will be appointed in the coming months.

It is understandable that the board majority and staff are weary of the citizens’ requests, when it is obvious they have no intention of protecting children, but rather continue to provide unsuitable materials to any child that happens upon them in the children’s section. It is no longer a matter of unintentional exposure. These materials are being provided in a purposeful manner to children under the guise of “Freedom to Read".

Suppressing Free Speech at the Library

At last Tuesday's meeting, Board President Allyson Tuckness not only reiterated the standard rules that suppress free speech and communication between citizens and the board, but she added another new rule. Watch (prompted to the 42:45 minute mark):

So let’s get a list going:

1. Comments limited to 10 speakers, with three minutes each (meetings typically end right at the one-hour mark, unless the board’s business goes longer, as happened at the February meeting)
2. Will not respond to public comments at the time they are made (has anyone ever had a response afterward?)
3. The board may ask clarifying questions, comment or take action at their discretion (but citizens cannot ask clarifying questions or comment on board comments)
   
4. Questions for staff about library operations should be made during normal business hours (why is this a problem? Isn't the board involved in library operations?)
   
5. If a patron needs to step outside for whatever reason, they are asked not to go beyond the foyer outside for “safety reasons” (a narrative being pushed)
   

Building the Bad Citizen Narrative

For several months now, the library has contracted to have a police officer on duty during the board meetings. Ostensibly this is because of “heightened emotions,” a term that Tuckness uses often when she speaks about citizen comments.

At the latest meeting she mentioned a speaker at the December meeting, a young man who spoke vehemently and passionately about being introduced to porn at a young age, and its deleterious effects upon him. He begged the board to remove such books from the children’s section of the library.

Oddly, at another meeting a month or so previously, a man in the audience had become angry at the exposure of some of the materials a citizen had shared. The man slapped the materials out of a woman’s hand and threw them at another citizen. He was escorted from the meeting room.

But it is the young Christian man who Tuckness mentions in the video above —with the 'heightened emotions'. This is the narrative of the Bad Citizen, the Bad Christian that has been formed and is being pushed to the public and perhaps other actors.

The board president asks citizens to respect the board. “We will not tolerate raising of voices or yelling at us, at other audience members, or Renee [the executive director]. I will give everyone a chance, will ask them to calm down, will not take away their time, but if it happens a second time you may be cut off.” Then she says, “Try to control emotions and respect us the same way that we would respect you.”

Is it the emotions that bother some of the board members and staff, or is it the truth being expressed in those emotions?

What does the Supreme Court of the United States say about free speech? From Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949):

“Accordingly, a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, pp. 315 U. S. 571-572, is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest.”

Board President Tuckness does not respect the citizens who speak. She asserts she has the right to determine the tone and volume of another citizen’s speech. Just as the socialist/progressives seek to defame those who oppose their agenda, so Tuckness is framing Christians as overly emotional, while ignoring the actual physical accosting of others on the part of a citizen opposed to relocating objectionable materials away from children.

And worst of all, Tuckness refuses to address the urgent issue of children being exposed to sexually explicit and pervasively vulgar books, even early indoctrination into alternative sexualities--there are actually board books for toddlers pushing gender ideology in the children's section of the library.

If she can't take the heat, President Tuckness should resign. The people will continue to speak.

For more on the Christian County Library see David Rice's Substack: Frenemies of the Library, Show Me the Money, Library Usage Still Lagging, Voting for Libraries? Titus Must Wade Through Jeff City Swamp, and Library Lovers Lock Horns.