It is kids.
High school mainly. They just wanted their AP US History Class, so they could get college credits, and prepare for college level learning. The curriculums were already decided. The State Board of Education already approved of the AP US History course.
Kids are connected. They are on the Tweeter all the time, sending messages and keeping in touch with people that have moved away. Some out of state, some just to Douglas County. But they keep in touch like they still live next door.
And they hear things. They hear about Texas dropping the whole curriculum state wide and bringing God into the class room. That Moses is the designer and inspiration of the Constitution of the United States. And that George Washington said that this nation was founded and held free by Christians (when he never said that, anywhere). They pick up the falseness.
Closer to home, Douglas county School Board breaks the teacher's union. Begins having closed meetings against the Sunshine law. Things in the schools are getting weird down in Douglas. Weird like the notices for the AP US History classes have been taken down. A new bulletin is up. The bulletin says that the
Colorado Christian University is offering College Prep Classes now. That they will be taught at the high school for $200 a credit. That the kids will earn Credits as CCR not AP.
They ask, "Is CCR accepted anywhere else?" and get no answers.
Messages on Facebook, and flashes on the Twitter are getting weird. On her Facebook page
Julie Williams, one of the board members is talking about Texas. Says that it was a good thing. Like it is something she admires.
Then, in September, Julie Williams stops the meeting to say that she has
concerns about the AP US History course.That it is too Left. That it doesn't project the right message for the kids. She hasn't read it. She doesn't know anything about it. She's never even seen it -- which she will admit the next day to CBS news cameras -- but she has
concerns.
The kids know that
this is how it starts. This is how it started in Texas. This is what happened in Douglas. It started exactly like this, and no one said anything. No one continues to say anything.
The kids stand up.
They say, "No."
The kids didn't mean to shout it, so that I heard it while I was passing. They didn't know that The American Historical Association (AHA) and the Organization of American Historians (OAH) would hear them all the way in Washington D.C. and send their support. Other people begin to send their support as well. Congressmen, Senators, Governors. Actors. The kid's voices get
Re-Tweeted
Wonkette: “Colorado Students Ditch Class, Refuse To Love America”
TPM: “Students Use Civil Disobedience To Protest Removing It From History Curriculum”
New York Times: “In Colorado, a Student Counter-protest to an Anti-Protest Curriculum”
And all that is well and good, a little heady and a little scary, but then their parents hear them, and tell them they have their support as well... and that's when anyone paying attention knows that the School Board is going down. It's all over the Tweets. It's in their eyes when they are protesting next to their mother, or their father.
The GOP candidates for the coming election say that the teachers are putting them up to it.
Julie Williams and Ken Witt on the District School Board say the kids are just pawns, being played by the teacher' s union. That these kids don't know what they are doing or why.
This angers the kids. And at the Board meeting, they want an apology. They don't get one. They want the board to stop messing with their college readiness courses, and they produce a petition with 40,000+ names. The Board says no, but calls it a compromise. But it isn't a compromise. They are going to do the exact same thing they were going to do before. The Board isn't listening. There are hundreds of parents and teachers and students there, and the Board isn't listening.
The Kids give Julie Williams, Ken Witt and John Newkirk a unanimous vote of no confidence.
The only job the Board really has, the kids reason, is to create and maintain a safe environment where they can get the most out of their school years. For the last year,
they only had one job. The kids decide, "Epic Fail".
Now even more people are hearing them.
It is cool that you are hearing them. And if it brings home to you and makes what is happening in Congress real to you, then that is cool too. But if you want to help,
sign the Recall petition. Take back their school. Get the away from the agenda of a few, who listen to no one. They can't vote. They need you.
Stand up.
