From: New York
Date sent: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 12:13:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Cost & Control Dots

TO ALL LOOPIES: Some necessary dot-connecting:

Ref: Push for parent training, "need for stimulating" development of children from 0-3, family leave from jobs in order to "volunteer" at children's schools, and the cost of being an American under the thumb of Clintons, the NEA and the Children's Rights groups.

Kiplinger's Magazine: March '97. "The Great Day-Care Paradox." Read for buzzword terminology creeping through, for costs for an "unsubsidized" (?) quality day-care center, remember the Rob Reiner push for ALL day-care centers to be certified, etc. Odd items from article: Cost for two children a year: $14,000. (Get all welfare mothers onto the work rolls? At minimum wage or government-created makework?) Breakdown for the $270 per wk. paid by parents for two children: $194 of it goes for teacher salaries and benefits.

"Teacher Diana engages in a constant activity; changing one of the 50 diapers that will be used and discarded in the infant room in a single day." [Does this relate to the high rate of illnesses among children in daycare?] To help cut costs at this quality center, parents are to pack the lunches for the children, and volunteer time. Like the obstetrician who comes in and makes repairs (!) EVEN SO: Ohio Dept. of Education gives this ONE day-care center $800 yr. for library books "and other teacher resources." AT&T gives it $10,000 for materials and field trips.

IMPORTANT DOT IN THIS: This little day-care center is "accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which dictates (!) teacher qualifications (notice "teacher") and staff-child ratios. 10% of all centers nationwide are now certified by NAEYC." [All children will enter school ready to learn? Early childhood education must begin by age 3? Infant stimulation must be part of any day-care facility? Day-care "providers" are now "teachers" and "trained."]

Washington Times National Weekly, Feb. 16: Paul Steidler column: "Questions for the NEA." Note for all education watchers: NEA membership dues pay the salaries and benefits of over $100,000 per year to OVER 2,000 people in the NEA and affiliates. He asks "what educational purpose do these people serve. Also: The NEA pays no property taxes on its D.C. headquarters, saving the NEA $1.6 million for its very expensive building. Other unions and political groups pay taxes on their buildings. [D.C. schools are among the most deplorable in the nation...] NEA refuses to provide copies of its tax returns, filed with the Secy. of Education.

Also, WTNW, Feb. 16, two FABULOUS columns: "Reform farce at the UN," by Cliff Kincaid; and "China's leaders are communists first," by Arnold Beichman. Kincaid describes "Earth Council," headed by Maurice Strong, point man chosen by new Secy. Annan, "working to draft and get UN passage of an Earth Charter," described by supporters as "a universal code of conduct for states and people." Strong sees the American way of life as "unsustainable." Again, we are directed to that in-their-own-words book, "Our Global Neighborhood." Maurice Strong and his committee of 27 call for national sovereignty to be "exercised collectively."

Final Beichman column paragraph quotes Milovan Djilas, 1988: "Communism looks upon itself as fully entitled by the design of history to change and control not only man's allegiances and behavior as a political being, but also his teachings, his tastes, his leisure time and indeed, the whole of his private universe. Communism cannot, therefore, transform itself into a free society. That would be squaring the circle."

[A rose by any other name.... Are we lining up to help make sure the circle isn't squared? Womb-to-tomb, cradle-to-grave, school-to-work, lifelong learning, certified day-care regardless of relationship to the child, 0-3 parent-training, success by 6, mandatory volunteerism... Will the circle be unbroken...]