IMPORTANT: If you have kids....

you may want to start considering collecting assault weapons and homeschooling your children.

Congress Funds Psychological Tests for Kids

>>>One of the nation's leading medical groups, the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS), decried a move by the U.S. Senate to join with the House in funding a federal program AAPS says will lead to mandatory psychological testing of every child in America – without the consent of parents.

When the Senate considered an omnibus appropriations bill last week that included funding for grants to implement universal mental health screening for almost 60 million children, pregnant women and adults through schools and pre-schools, it approved $20 million of the $44 million sought, Kathryn Serkes, public affairs counsel for AAPS, told NewsMax.<<<

These tests can be a way of screening any child who thinks for themselves and isn't in lockstep with Bush's agenda. They can then be marginalized by being placed in a mental institution, much like what happened to dissenters in the old Soviet Union......

Exactly.

in hell. :scared:

The were thrown into medical institutions because they were independent and didn't want to get married and have kids. They invented stupid diagnoses for those people and it ruined a lot of lives.
Duckie

What happened to Republicans` opposition to Big Brother? This is indeed chilling.

Finland still had manditory phychological screenings for all the kids in the country when they're in 3rd grade.

My strongest memory of this was how the results were made public on the class board and how i noticed that out of my class of 43 (including the teacher) only 3 people did not have some sort of mental disease.

Later i figured it was the fucking shrink getting paid by a local drugs company for every kid he diagnoses with a disease...

I know NewsMax is a mouthpiece for the far right so I wanted to see what the Freepers had to say about this. It doesn't appear on the site. I guess ignorance is bliss.

I read a thread yesterday about this, with links to a FR thread, which had links back to that thread.
Perhaps no one likes intrusive gov't, eh?

a link to HSLDA (Home Schooling Legal Defense Association.
from there:
"Unfortunately, the media reports have often been inaccurate. There is NO mandatory mental health testing requirement being imposed upon states or local schools. However, there is still a cause for concern and a need for continued vigilance."
(http://hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200411/200411170.asp)

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

on the Congressional web sites?

an omnibus bill, meaning the catch-all of funding at the end of the year. But we can take heart in that (as is always the case with educational funding) they voted less than half the money requested to pay for this.

The cost of testing for No Child Left Behind, another unfunded/underfunded mandate is making a number of school seriously consider simply opting out of NCLB.

Rather than collecting assault weapons and homeschooling your kids, keep your little darling home the day of testing. They never schedule make-ups for these tests. It's how some schools manipulate their school test scores, by seeing to it that certain categories of kids don't take the tests in the first place.

One criteria for achieving an NCLB pass rate is the percentage of children taking the tests. If not enough children in every sub-category take the tests, then the school is deemed to be "not making adequate yearly progress". Do that for a couple of years in a row, and students are given the opportunity to transfer to another school at taxpayer expense. (Vouchers, anyone?) Of course, that was the whole rationale behind NCLB in the first place.

A vote was held to remove this from the appropriations bill, only one Democrat voted in favor of removing it.

abomination was in the house.

bit of legislative caca?

His name is GW Bush. It was created via executive order.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020429-2.html

Standardized tests are psychological tests; at least, according to my old text and professor from the "psychological measurement" course I took 12 years ago. NCLB requires them to be administered to all students, and their scores used to abuse public education for the enrichment of corporate publishing/consulting houses and the benefit of some political careers.

This is just another step down the road. Right now, legislation about tests and scores determines what books kids are allowed to use, what methodologies schools and teachers are allowed to use, and not use, in the classroom. And more tests have always loomed on the horizon. Earlier in the process, in my state of CA, there was Pete Wilson. And his testing/accountability system. New standards written by his appointed committee, new high-stakes tests and threats. Then came NCLB, which expanded this program on a federal level, and promised that, while we do math and language arts tests now, soon we'll do more. And sure enough, we now do science tests, writing tests, pe tests, with more on the horizon. And our district, scrambling to meet demands once a few schools didn't make their AYP, now does trimester testing based on the "approved" scripted language arts program, and promises the same for math next year.

Of course, we've always known that there are many factors that affect student learning, and family habits and values are one of the biggest. So now, we can test and drug kids whose families didn't have the time, skills, or inclination to teach them the kinds of organizational habits and interpersonal skills that lead to survival in the overcrowded, understaffed jungles of our public school systems. Otherwise, we might have to invest in actual school counselors, family counseling, parent education, small schools, small class sizes, and a better adult/student ratio on our campuses. We wouldn't want to spend the $$$ necessary to achieve all of that; it would be too empowering to local schools and families. So we'll direct the flow of $$$ to the testers and the drug companies, instead. That rewards our corporate friends, and guarantees a large pool for the recruiters, growing larger every year.

I don't know why this would surprise anybody who has paid attention to what's really going on with our schools the last 4 years. But better late than never, I guess.

I wonder if this assclown realizes that his kids are subject to the same thing. Hmmm.
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Voegelin
(Son of Liberty)
11/30/04 12:42 AM

What good is money for testing if funds for incarceration and electroshock are not included?

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program I believe will be ripe for abuse. Does anyone remember the daycare hysteria in the 80's? Some psychologist or psychiatrist who wants to make a name for himself could find a lot of "abused" children and destroy a lot of families. If I had been psychologically tested when I was a kid, I'm not certain what might have happened. I had a fascination with some things that might be considered "odd" (not sexual); and I was extremely shy. I did very well in school, though, and turned out to be a normal and compassionate human being, because I was raised by extremely good parents.

I just bought a house in a primarily rethug neighborhood, for the public school quality only. Now I won't even be able to send my kid to public school.