In a recent newspaper article West Ada High School graduates confronted the Albertson Foundation via a video over their disparaging and controversial ad which the foundation financed. It depicted students getting off of a school bus in the middle of nowhere with only one student left on board. Click this link to see the video. The ad was called “Don’t Fail Idaho” and has been run consistently on local TV for several months. The ad stated that four out of five Idaho kids are not prepared for life after high school. This was supposed to show that eighty percent of our high school graduates are not prepared to enter the “real world”. This shows the fallacy of Foundations like Albertsons getting involved in something they have not thoroughly researched.
The Albertson Foundation has also been very involved in bringing Common Core to Idaho and made sure it was entrenched in our school system. Why is it that the people with the money always think they know better? The Gem State Patriot presented a resolution to our legislators signed by 35 organizations representing over 20 thousand citizens last year asking them to hold hearings on Common Core. These letters were delivered to their personal mail boxes and by e-mail to every legislator in the house and senate. We received one response back from a democratic legislator. When we asked to speak with the Chairman of the Education Committee, Reed DeMordaunt, who refused to hold the hearings reluctantly granted us a 15 minute meeting. During that meeting we asked him if he was aware that the Republican National Committee and the Idaho State Committee had both come out against common core. His answer was “Really”. We later found out that Mr. DeMordaunt was a bought and paid for mouthpiece for the Albertson Foundations as he sat on their board’s Teacher Compensation Committee.
I have four grandchildren who have all graduated high school in West Ada with great marks. Three have graduated from college, and one is in her sophomore year. One has obtained a physician’s assistant degree, one is actively seeking that same degree, and one is working full time for Federal Express. They didn’t get any help or advice or grants from the Albertson Foundation during the time they were in high school or college. What they did get is a lot of encouragement and help from their parents and teachers to be high achievers. Albertsons needs to stop these discouraging ads and stop meddling with our school curriculum. Not everyone needs or wants to attend college. Let the teachers and parents do their jobs as they are the closest to the children and spend the most time with them. If they want to donate money, let them donate to increase our teachers’ salaries and stop paying for under-used programs like School Net which cost them $19 million dollars and the taxpayers $40 million. We do not need corporate or non-profit entities telling us how to run our schools or what to teach our children that should be done at a local level. We already have too much outside interference in our education system.
