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Welcome to my web site.  Over time my view on many subjects will appear. My purpose here is to make the reader think about what is transpiring in our public schools and why it is happening.  The changes in our public schools are deliberate and part of a huge plan by leftist progressives.

 

If you are a leftist progressive, maybe I can change your mind here, because if you care about children as you say, you surely cannot abide their being dumbed down for the sake of large corporations that need compliant workers.  If you are a real Conservative Republican, you will find information here that will verify and validate the concerns that you have about our educational system.  If you are a person who claims to be a Republican, but you have no idea what that means, I would suggest that you should spend your time elsewhere. Go to the closest mall instead and go shopping. There is nothing here for you!

Primarily I am interested in returning academics and ability grouping to our public schools. In order to accomplish these goals, smart people are going to have to involve themselves in ridding our public schools of the people (administrators and board members) who presently have a lock on the curriculum and methodology being used which is all atrocious and is dumbing down our children. Whether they know what they are doing or not, they have had a chance to fix things, and they have failed and need to go do something else, somewhere else. Thankfully former Superintendent Alton Frailey has left the Katy school district and Superintendent Lance Hindt is resigning (at least he says he is).  Frailey's departure was not soon enough. I'm shocked that the school board did not have the gumption to send him packing and get him out of their hair when he announced to them in  OCTOBER (2015) that he was retiring.  They just allowed him to stick around and draw another year's pay on his Texas Teacher Retirement thus sticking the taxpayers with another bill!  [See The Katy  Rancher article on Frailey's $425,850 payout for "work" from January 1, 2016 to August 1, 2016.] Now we are cursed with another superintendent who really doesn't want to leave.  Our wimpy Board needs to move him on his way. [See https://communityimpact.com/houston/katy/education/2018/07/03/katy-isd-superintendent-lance-hindt-will-no-longer-preside-over-board-meetings-until-further-notice/ ] For sure Katy ISD does NOT need to hire anyone brought here by Lance Hindt!  It is being revealed every day, in my opinion,  that his judgment regarding anything having to do with school children is flawed.  We do not need to perpetuate the culture that he has imprinted on our District!

 

Parents of all races and ethnicities send their children to school to be EDUCATED, not socialized or futurized or clarified or collaborated or multiculturalized. Parents also do NOT want the school district collecting 300,000 points of data on their children without their permission! Parents want their children to know how to do math, how to read and write--and to know how to write cursively, to understand the true history and government of America and Western Civilization, to learn about scientific matters (and not just play with "scientific" toys), and to build each year on the KNOWLEDGE that they acquired the previous year. That kind of an education is called a "liberal arts education."  It allows people to finish high school and go on to do anything they are capable of doing.  It is a foundation on which every other kind of credible post secondary education is built. Without such an education, students are lost. I know of NO parent who sends his child to a Katy ISD school in the first grade hoping for him/her to obtain a "vocational" education!  That's NOT what Katy parents want for their children.  KISD students are forced into these programs because they are not taught properly in elementary school, and that is a crime.  "Vocational" education should occur AFTER a student has a basic academic education.

 

I would suggest that right now your child in a Katy ISD public school is no longer able to get an academic education because the Katy School Board has taken it away from him. [One might want to read about the use of the Partners in Education (PIE) program to bring socialism to our KISD students.  Find it under Education/Partners in Education on this web site. I have inserted their original "strategic plan" outline. One might also try to realize that the "Futures" program (Odyssey of the Mind/Destination Imagination etc.) is also, in my opinion, a villain in disguise, and that all those smile-in-your-face school administrators who allow and push this program know EXACTLY what they are doing to your child!]

 

Parents also should be wary of the public schools' efforts to "partner" with parents in the upbringing of YOUR children. Pay attention to the District's use of the word partner. Children belong to their parents, and they are not to be "shared" with the public schools and their minions. If you read the "Mission Statement" of Katy ISD, you will see that they intend to be fully "partnered" with parents in the rearing of their children. That's just wrong!  Parents should insist that the public schools STOP this practice. 

 

The school district should not be teaching your children about drugs and sex and life skills and other things that are YOUR responsibility to teach according to YOUR beliefs and moral code--not those of the school district.  When I see threads on social media where CHILDREN are leaving home, I can't help but think to myself--"This is the result of the public schools' interference in what is the sole right and domain of individual parents."  Beware! The things your children are learning in our schools from leftist educators are not what you as their parent would want them to learn. 

 

Ironically, two years ago our school board hired a new superintendent, Lance Hindt.  They're paying him an awful lot when I'm sure he would have come here for less since this is his hometown, his family lives here, and he went to public school here.  But don't blame the new superintendent for the excesses and mindlessness of all seven of the school board members who hired him.  They could have set up the contract properly, given him a competitive salary and not broken the bank.  In no way are their mistakes transferrable to the superintendent! I also blame our state legislature for their refusal to tie superintendent salaries to that of the governor.  No one with a brain can argue that a superintendent anywhere has more responsibility or value than the governor! It is of note, just to put things in perspective, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will make $267,000 this year (2018), while the Katy ISD superintendent will be making $375,000.00. Our Governor, Greg Abbott, makes a little more than $150,000.  Something's not right here! Also of note is the fact that built into Hindt's contract is the right to approve all contractual changes, receive the same percentage pay raise, on average, as teachers every year, and to have the contract re-upped continually so that he always has a 5 year contract! Too bad the KISD school board doesn't have as smart an attorney as Lance Hindt does!

 

As it turns out it did not matter that Lance Hindt has an iron clad contract.  He got moved on anyway!  Hopefully, someone on the current Board of Trustees will be smart enough, and wise enough, and patriotic enough, and clear-headed enough, and concerned enough to make certain that the next superintendent's contract favors the school district instead of the superintendent!

 

When Leonard Merrell was hired in 1995, I pretty much wrote his contract.  I combined the best parts of the contracts that I had read (and they were many) and put it on the table before the District's lawyers could do so.  You should have seen our attorney's' face when he saw what I had done.  Unfortunately the original contract has gotten changed since then, but the one I drew up still forms the basis of the one that exists.

 

With regard to our "in decline" educational system I think smart teachers also want a knowledge based education, but they too have been kept from delivering a traditional American education. Mostly what I see is that "traditional" teachers have by this time been brainwashed, fired or retired, so there's hardly anyone left to explain what is wrong with what is being done in our classrooms.

 

American education accomplished the traditional goals of excellence for hundreds of years before the likes of Arne Duncan, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Bob Thompson, Skip Meno, Ann Richards, Hugh Hayes, Barrack Obama, Leonard Merrell, and Alton Frailey got a stranglehold on our educational system.  Parents need to pay attention and take back our schools starting with the ones in Katy, Texas! And yes, stupid Hillary Clinton is behind much of the effort to dumb down your children. She wants to control them, and she and her helpers are well on their way to being able to do that.

Like the frog in the pot of boiling water who dies slowly when he could have jumped out had he been paying attention, the public does not see the subtle changes that have transpired for many years (beginning about 1965) that spell eventual doom for public education.  These changes collectively mean that the public schools are not what they were set up to be so many years ago. A "free" public education is one of the tenets of a Republican form of government.  Most Americans, unfortunately, do not understand the difference between a republic and a democracy, and therein lies the problem. America was established by our Constitution as a republic.

 

Through the efforts of progressives in the last one hundred years, the curriculum, the role of a teacher, the school building architecture, and the purpose of public schools and public education have been undermined and altered.

Without understanding of the changes, parents send their children off to public schools where they do not learn anything of substance.  Teachers are no longer allowed to teach, having become "facilitators" with copies of mindless Common Core worksheets in their hands. School leaders have been co-opted to the point that most of their goals are greedy and self-serving. Students are left out of the equation, and parents and taxpayers are none the wiser as all that currently constitutes a public school is hidden in every manner imaginable. The perpetrators of this scheme should be ashamed of themselves for their part in it. Actually they are traitors, in my opinion, to our system of government.

 

Ironically, private schools are also under siege, and anyone who thinks their child is "safe" from all of these dumbing down initiatives because he is in a private school is sadly mistaken.  All those teachers at the private schools are products of the same state and private Colleges of Education which are steeped in progressive malarkey. Your child at a private school just gets more attention so that the school can make certain of his transformation into a little Socialist. The curriculum director at a private school has no more discernment about the quality of a curriculum than any public school administrator.

 

And speaking of "school administrators," all of us need to pay attention to who these people are, of what their "education" is constituted, and what they are doing.  It appears to me, that there is a huge con going on with regard to the value and abilities of those who hold "educational doctorates."  In my opinion, those degrees are not worth the paper upon which they are printed.  They indicate no knowledge base, no experience of note, and no reason for someone holding such a degree to be hired at the exorbitant salaries that they are commanding from witless, mindless, social climbing school board members. School board members in Texas are pretty much nobodies who manage to get themselves elected to public office.  Their reasons for choosing to engage in the system are many, but mostly it is a desire to pad one's pocket or to pad one's pocket. There are no requirements for school board members to be academically educated, and many of those in Katy ISD are not academically educated. They have no business being on a school board when that is the case. Over the years I think I have only known about five school board members who really cared about the education of the students. 

 

Our current superintendent was a football coach.  That's the essence of his public school experience before he began his upward mobility in the administrative scheme.  He is like his Katy ISD predecessors whose "vast experience" constituted someone who could teach reading to first graders (and using the wrong methodology), an AG teacher, and a track coach. These people have walked away with millions of tax dollars while robbing our students of their academic educations!

 

I hope to provide understanding about how such changes developed, how to recognize those changes, and what parents and taxpayers can do to fix things.  We will know that the schools have been fixed when we see ability grouping return! That is the litmus test.

 

I also hope that if you have found your way to this site, you will take the time to read the 600+ pages of articles presented here. I'm doing the best I can to tell you the truth about what is happening in the schools where your children go 175+ days a year. There is a conspiracy afoot, and it has negative intentions and consequences. To take away the right to an academic education from our youth is despicable!  Failing to teach our children how to read (40% or more of Katy ISD students graduate as functional illiterates), failing to teach them how to do real math, failing to provide them with the opportunity to understand their American culture and their American history, failing to teach them real science, failing to teach them how to write cursively and well, failing to teach them how to read classical literature, and diverting funds that should be spent on academics to other uses instead, is foolish. You should not and can not let them continue to do this to your children! And if you want to understand the bigger picture in America, think "education."  The people who are causing political problems are Americans who have not received a proper academic education.  They cannot think because they do not know anything about which to think!

 

Our children have had the most precious thing we as the taxpaying public can give them-- a proper academic education, taken away from them.

 

Many of the articles on this website that provide explanation, come from others.  I appreciate their willingness to allow me to post their efforts here.

Along the way, there are other issues and information on subjects that are important to me that I wish to share.

 

My intent is always to be factually accurate. My intent is not to berate personally any individual. Any criticism that appears here (and some of it is harsh) is directed toward the actions and words of  those who have made themselves public figures*. Any factual errors should be reported to me immediately so that they may be corrected.

 

As for my opinions, (and all articles that appear are tinged with my opinions,) they are my own, and if one wishes to oppose my opinions, get your own web site!  You may be put off by the name of this web site, The World According to Mary, but please know that I have been trying to get people to realize what is happening in public schools since the 1970's.  I've not always understood all of it either, but I think I know more about the agenda than most.  It's hard to get a handle on all of it because it is so wide-spread, pervasive and hidden while being so destructive to the academic educations of school children.  All I am interested in is fair treatment of all children in our public schools. If there are those who choose, knowing full well what they are doing (and at this point I think most of them DO know), to continue with this agenda of deliberately dumbing down our children, then they make themselves, as public figures, fair game for criticism.

 

Fortunately our State is coming to its senses with regard to curriculum and testing.  The new STAAR test actually tests real academic knowledge.  The fact that it does is the reason Katy ISD students are not doing well on the STAAR tests--Katy ISD has not changed the curriculum yet to fit the test.  Not changing the curriculum is illegal, and parents need to be screaming about that instead of that the STAAR test is too difficult! Figure it out. Don't be as stupid as our school board appears to be! The District is NOT CHANGING THE CURRICULUM TO FIT THE STAAR TEST ON PURPOSE!!! They want the STAAR TEST to be dumbed down again to match their Socialist curriculum so they may keep proclaiming to the public how wonderful KISD.

 

I will try to keep the content current, but frankly my heart's not in this anymore, and I have other things I'd rather do! Having tried for years to make the public see what is happening to their children and then having them ignore all the warnings is very discouraging.  I made sure MY kids were well educated, so I guess the rest of you are on your own! If you want them back living with you when they grow up, that's your choice.  I tried my best to warn you.

 

I encourage your responses, and I may be reached at Icemom617@aol.com  Be sure to put an identifying word or two in the subject line so I'll know it's not spam! And please, no attachments! I don't open them.

Submission of a response to my opinions constitutes permission for me to print the response, or not.

 

Those submitting confidential information of course will not have their identity or email revealed, and I encourage those who have vital information about what is transpiring in our school district to share your concerns.  I have already heard from a great many parents and employees since I started this web site nine  years ago. It would be helpful to also hear from students.  If I were a student, and I suddenly realized how I had been shortchanged by this school district, I would be very angry.  In my opinion students have been cheated out of their future! Many of them who have to still live at home because they can't get into a good college or even get a job should be especially angry. Their best weapon is their vote.  They should use it! I've also realized that many parents who have opposed my efforts over the years are getting payback.....It seems that many of them now enjoy the continued presence of their children under their roof ten years later because they couldn't finish or ever get into college, and now can't get a job and so are dependents even yet.  All of their problems are thanks to their questionable Katy ISD education...

 

Students who are seniors in high school right now should also be aware by now how they have been shortchanged. If they are 18, they should GO REGISTER TO VOTE!!  They could, by themselves, if they were to register and vote, change this school district overnight! I would love to see a school board peopled with seven nineteen year-olds.  It couldn't be any worse than the one we've got!

 

I suggest that before you read anything else, you first go to Katy ISD and then Mission Statement so that you can begin to understand what is afoot in the Katy school district.  They have clearly delineated what it is they want to do with YOUR children.