Hate Speech Against Homeschoolers
Topic: Education Monopoly
[Notice: The Political Devotions Weblog has moved to TenMinuteLobbyist.com.]

(What are "political devotions"? Click here.)

Michelle Malkin brings us an amazing story of Education Monopoly hate-mongering:

The public school establishment hates homeschoolers. They've smeared the movement as a conspiracy of conservative Christian zealots. They've scoffed at homeschooled kids as social pariahs. They've painted homeschooling parents as uneducated and negligent.

And now, under the guise of preparing students for a violent terrorist attack, educators in one public school district are casting homeschoolers in the role of bomb-detonating militants.

She quotes the Muskegeon Chronicle's story on the drill:

"The exercise will simulate an attack by a fictitious radical group called Wackos Against Schools and Education who believe everyone should be homeschooled. Under the scenario, a bomb is placed on the bus and is detonated while the bus is traveling on Durham, causing the bus to land on its side and fill with smoke."

This is not a joke. A taxpayer-funded drill is using public school students to enforce anti- homeschooling bigotry under the guise of preparing for terrorism. Terrorism by whom? By Islamic jihadists who hijack planes and incinerate kids headed to Disneyworld. Islamic terrorists who take hundreds of children hostage in Beslan, force them to drink their own urine and shoot babies in the back. Islamic terrorists who groom toddlers as suicide bombers.

Our enemies are Islamic extremist murderers. Except if you happen to attend the Muskegon County, Mich., schools, where the menacing faces of terrorism belong to parents who make untold sacrifices to give their children the best education they know how by schooling them in the loving environment of their own homes.

I recall the Islamist-sympathizing admonition included in the National Education Association's touchy-feely, post-Sept. 11 curriculum: "Do not suggest that any group is responsible" for the terrorist attacks, one tip for parents and teachers urged. Unless, it should be amended, you can work an anti-homeschooling hate angle into the lesson.

When President Bush's education secretary, Rod Paige, likened the NEA in jest to a "terrorist organization," teachers' union officials and the media became completely unhinged. How dare he make such an odious comparison, they gasped. How dare he make light of the real terrorists, they fumed.

"I can tell you what my first response was: Scary. That's really frightening," said Diana Garchow, a special-education teacher at Highland Elementary School in Bakersfield, Calif., to the Associated Press after Paige's remarks. "It's scary that you can't voice an opinion in this country without being called a terrorist. . . . I don't care if it was a joke or what it was, that was a totally inappropriate comment."

Paige was forced to apologize to teachers. What about the Muskegon County, Mich., school system? Will its public education militants apologize to homeschoolers for taking an intolerant swipe at their beliefs? Or will this politicized "Wackos Against Schools and Education" terror drill be coming to a classroom near your

If you would like to express your opinion to the guilty parties, the Happy Homeschooler has contact information here.