This is a pretty accurate representation of what it’s like to live up here in the People’s Republic. Note: This is from Brookline, which is the quintessential rich, elitist liberal Mass town.
(Boston Globe) — Saying the Pledge of Allegiance has no educational value, a progressive activist group is pushing for Brookline to stop recitations of the pledge in public schools.
Members of Brookline PAX are asking Town Meeting this fall to vote in favor of a resolution calling for the town’s School Committee to rescind its pledge policy and stop it from being recited in the schools.
Martin Rosenthal, the co-chair of Brookline Pax, said that though the recitation of the pledge is voluntary, there is subtle and sometimes overt pressure on students, especially younger children, to participate, which he said makes his “skin crawl.”
“It just puts kids in an uncomfortable situation,” Rosenthal said. “How do you say that to a 6-year-old. . . . We just don’t think it belongs in the schools.”
The article Brookline Pax submitted for Brookline’s Town Meeting comes just months after the town’s School Committee approved a revised policy requiring principals to allow a weekly recitation of the pledge during morning announcements. Participation in the recitations is left up to the individuals at the schools.
School Committee Chairwoman Rebecca Stone said the new policy was approved in the spring after discussion began over saying the pledge at the Devotion School, where recitations were not a regular occurrence. While weekly recitations of the pledge had been held at most Brookline Kindergarten through 8th grade schools, the pledge also wasn’t said regularly at the Lincoln School.
“I agree with (Rosenthal) that it’s not of great educational value,” Stone said. “We’re recognizing established and in some cases revered practices of the citizenry. There is something to that in the public schools.”
Rosenthal, who has a daughter at Brookline High School, called the pledge a loyalty oath loaded with complex issues such as justice, liberty and religion, in the phrase “under God.”
HT: NavyTim