GiGo: Garbage In, Garbage Out!

GIGO!  Garbage In-Garbage Out!
 
Recently there has been a flurry of education bills promoting mental health counseling in schools. Why did this hot topic suddenly come up? Let’s follow the money! 
In his 2022 State of the Union Address, Joe Biden unveiled his mental health pilot project for young people for which he pledged $50 million.  On March 2, 2022, Carolyn Jones of EdSource reported that “he’d include $1 billion in his 2023 budget for more school counselors, psychologists, social workers and other staff who work directly with students.  The money would be in addition to mental health funding already included in the federal Covid relief bills.” Ms. Jones added, “Biden also promised to eliminate obstacles for schools to be reimbursed by Medicaid for student mental health services that youth advocates have long worked toward.  In addition, Biden pledged $50 million for pilot programs that would place mental health clinics in schools, libraries, and other non-traditional locations.”
Who in Alabama was the first onboard with Biden’s plan? In March of 2021, Senator Roger Smitherman, D- 18, met with the Alabama Association of School Psychologists (AASP), and in February of 2022 he introduced SB40 to implement their ideas in Alabama. So, what is AASP?  According to their website, it’s an affiliate of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), the major professional and the world’s largest organization of school psychologists and represents more than 25,000 of them. AASP personnel attend their conferences and share their materials.  Some of those materials include lesson plans by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Their extensive resources include subjects of Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Transgenderism, White Privilege, Systemic Racism, LGBTQ and Questioning, Equity, and all the radical leftist group policies.  NASP is totally committed to SEL (Social Emotional Learning), a term used extensively in Smitherman’s bill, and to the WOKE organization and a strong force for “social justice and equity”.  NASP even endorses the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has not been ratified in the US because it usurps the authority of parents and dramatically increases the authority of the government over the children.  A wise, experienced Alabama mental health counselor expressed to us his concerns that the current practices of government-funded mental health school counselors do not reflect a positive agenda.  Their philosophy or world view is anti-Christian with no objective standards of what is right or wrong.  They are among those who have redefined what a family looks like, as did the old book Heather has 2 Mommies.  This wise counselor also believes that NASP will be influencing our impressionable youth during their formative years, molding their beliefs, values and character.
 
If a nation’s schools teach perversity, hatred, ugliness and division, then the outcome will be a citizenry that is full of perversity, hatred, ugliness and division.  The expression from decades back still holds true:  “GIGO,” Garbage In, Garbage Out!
 
Concerned Grandmothers of the Wiregrass
Barbara Moore, Dothan, AL bmooreusa@yahoo.com, 334/791-9473
Betty Peters, Dothan, AL betty.peters83@yahoo.com, 334/701-9810
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