Something extraordinary happened to me this morning on Facebook. I got the following message from a friend there, "...you are the most informed person I know. A friend posted this, this morning, and I wanted to know if this was anything you had heard of and your opinion on it. Thank you!"
Wow - right? Who me? To that part of her message I replied, "I'm the most informed person you know? 
Why thanks for making my day! But compared to many, I'm still wandering in the wilderness like Moses. lol" And that part of my reply to her I am absolutely sure of. But I will try to proceed with what information I do know so as not to let her down.
What she posted after her kind opening:
"To those of you not in the education field, you may not understand a lot of the educational jargon and the foundation of the American education system. Having a school voucher system (proposed by Trump's Education secretary Betsy DeVos) doesn't just mean you can choose any school you want your kid to go to. It also means the public education program will be dismantled. Let me explain...
If your child has an IEP, frame it. Then kiss it good-bye.
If you have a job in special-education, meaning if you're a: special education teacher, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, a para, or a teacher's aid, you're in the same boat.
If you are in ESL teacher, you'll go first.
House Bill 610 makes some large changes.
Inform yourselves.
This bill will effectively start the school voucher system to be used by children ages 5-17 and starts the defunding process of public schools.
The bill will eliminate the Elementary and Education Act of 1965, which is the nation's educational law that provides equal opportunity in education.
ESSA is a big comprehensive program that covers programs for struggling learners, advanced and gifted kids in AP classes, ESL classes, classes for minorities such as Native Americans, Rural Education, Education for the Homeless, School Safety (Gun-Free schools), Monitoring and Compliance, and Federal Accountability Programs. Yes, there are all of these programs happening in our education system, in addition to just academics.
The Bill also abolishes the Nutritional Act of 2012 (No Hungry Kids Act) which provides nutritional standards in school breakfast and lunch.
The bill has no wording whatsoever protecting Special Needs kids, no mention of IDEA, and FAPE.
Some things ESSA does for Children with Disabilities:
-Ensures access to the general education curriculum.
-Ensures access to accommodations on assessments.
-Ensures concepts of Universal Design for Learning.
-Includes provisions that require local education agencies to provide evidence-based interventions in schools with consistently underperforming subgroups.
-Requires states in Title I plans to address how they will improve conditions for learning including reducing incidents of bullying and harassment in schools, overuse of discipline practices and reduce the use of aversive behavioral interventions (such as restraints and seclusion).
Please call your representative and ask him/her to vote NO on House Bill 610 (HR 610) introduced by three Republican reps."
I had heard of the bill and thought I understood it pretty well, but I decided to look it up before I replied. The first thing I noticed was that this exact piece is already appearing all over the internet. The speed of the robots, sheeple and fake account posters is not to be underestimated when a good pile of propaganda like this is fresh out of the bull stew pot.
I quickly replied to her on Facebook but then I thought I might as well get my reply out in the public too in the event it might reach even one person wondering the same thing as my friend. For the sake of this article, I cleaned up and enhanced my reply to her as follows:
This is mass hysterical leftwing propaganda as usual.
The easiest thing I could find for her to compare what it really does vs what this says it does is attached. About the comments there, I found most people haven't a clue what they are even talking about. I picked it because it is simply written and quickly read, even if a "tad" slanted and slightly incorrect in some of the wording. I highly recommend visiting the link to the bill itself for a straightforward view of it.
So why do the lefties hate this so much? For one thing, it gets rid of the horrible and disastrous Michelle Obama school lunch program. Not only did schools drop out of the program because they were losing so much money from participating, but the food was generally so bad that kids across America took up making pictures of their lunches and posting them on social media in protest.
A few examples:
It was reported that 1 million kids stopped eating school lunches because of Michelle Obama's standards. Items shared here represent a mere smidgen of the information available about just how bad the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 really is.
Apparently the left's response to getting rid of this failure of a program is, "OH MY GAWD HOW HORRIBLE! THINK OF THE STARVING MALNOURISHED CHILDREN! TIME TO PANIC!"
SHEESH!
This brings me to the second reason the lefties hate this bill which is because it gives parents the right to choose where their kids will go to school whether public, private, or home school and receive a tax credit voucher if anything other than public school is chosen. To me, this sounds great, right? But, it doesn't sound so great to the BIG GOV types who want parents to be secondarily in charge of their own kids vs. gov being primarily in control of them from cradle to grave.
If that sounds farfetched and outrageous to you, just remember, the woman who the lefties wanted to be our President said this about it.
The Unions, who have a stranglehold on education in this country, especially don't like it because they may have to rethink Tenure which holds crappy teachers in place while competing with the Private schools that are instead hiring fresh innovative educators who are held to standards of quality not time spent on the job. An insane but prime example of just how bad things have gotten in the public school system is this recent report that New York is dropping the teacher literacy test amid claims of racism!
I think most of all they hate it because they hate competition for the control of children's minds. They are counting on continuing to indoctrinate, brainwash and propagandize to the masses of children nationally to carry out their generational agendas. They must control especially the history and social studies that is taught so their perspective is the only prevailing perspective and serves their purpose alone.
As far as the threats to special education, lets examine Denisha Merriweather, one of the guests President Trump invited to his speech at the joint session. She was held back twice by the time she reached the fourth grade until she took advantage of tax credits and a scholarship program offered in Florida where she went on to flourish in school. Instead of failing, she became an honor student and is now pursuing her masters degree. What the Florida system similar to the provisions of this bill in question did for Denisha, no public school could have ever done.
Finally, I can sum up why the left hates this bill quite simply. It offers choice which equals freedom from their brainwashing and free thinkers scare the you know what out of the left and all globalists. Why? Because their wickedness depends on them being in control of the children generation after generation to turn them into malleable conformist sheep.
Speaking of sheep, if you haven't heard any commentary about what the schools are up to made by Charlotte Iserbert, former Senior Policy Adviser to the US Department of Education, or read her book, "The Intentional Dumbing Down of America," now would be a good time to explore. You may be absolutely shocked to find out just how big and how bad things really have become and will continue to be if something, like this bill, doesn't stop it.
Here is a sampler:
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