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May 28, 2006

I dunno...I dunno...I dunno

PLANS is supposed to be made up of people who have developed expert knowledge about waldorf schools and waldorf education. However, whenever anyone asks them an awkward question, they suddenly either disappear or become exceedingly ignorant. Consider, for example, the snippet below, taken off of the the Waldorf Critics discussion list.

The children were also required to say a pledge to the sun
flag, and other Wicca based religious practices.

I don't know what he was talking about there.

-Dan Dugan

Dan was quoting from the grant application, submitted by PLANS, with the name of PLANS lawyer as author and the name of PLANS president, Deborah Snell listed as responsible person. But Mr. Dan Dugan has no idea what his lawyer could be talking about. No idea where he could have gotten the idea that Waldorf Education and Waldorf Schools could be related to Wicca. Just no idea at all.

However, consider this snippet:

On May 26, 1997, PLANS president Debra Snell responded that while allegations of witchcraft were not part of PLANS' agenda, she had done nothing to correct them, and she was "happy" that they were made in the media.
Debra Snell: We did not phone the Sacramento Bee to dispute Sac. City Unified School Officials statement that PLANS claims is based on rumor either...
Anyone who knows PLANS' claims, knows that witchcraft has not been our handle.
[But] We're frankly happy to see the issue in the news, and it has certainly been there lately.

So PLANS was happy to have false claims of witchcraft associated with waldorf schools and waldorf education, but Dan has no idea, no idea at all, where his lawyer got the idea, just not the slightest bit of comprehension as to why this blatant falsehood turned up in the grant application.

And yes, the lawyer did it.

Now, where have I heard that excuse before?

Posted by Deborah at 1:45 PM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2006

Responses to: A Peculiar Grant Application

The response has been dismayingly feeble. So, I think I'll start with some quotes from Diana Winter, berating me in her inimitable manner for implying that PLANS might have lied on their grant application.

You made innuendos that you are refusing to explain. You should explain them, or your own tactics are sleazy, while you wax eloquent that other people are doing things that are supposedly "murky." You retract the word with your exaggerated politeness, but offer no explanation. Have you no shame? Perceive no irony? Other people are up to dirty tricks, but these tactics you are using, these are honorable? You planted the suggestion here that PLANS lied in a grant application. This is really not costing you a little sleep?

So, I explained, I substantiated, I quoted directly from the PLANS grant application. I'm sure that no one acquainted with Diana Winter will be surprised that she failed to apologize for her abusive remarks. In fact, her behavior was quite murky. First she disappeared from the AT for a few days. Complete and total silence, after she insisted that I had to substantiate my claim, or commit hari-kiri or the online equivalent. Then she returned, offered the feeble explanation that:

The name of the school is wrong on the grant application? I have no idea the meaning of this, but it looks like an error to me. So conspiracy hounds, if they'd written "Yuba River Charter School" on that form instead of "Yuba City," PJI would have said; "There is no school by that name. The correct name is blah-blah. Funding denied." LOL.

Just in case somebody is having trouble following this somewhat murky discussion, Diana chose the most extremely minor point in the quote from the grant application, that one of the school names is incorrect. The far less minor point is the claim that the school, still unnamed, was compulsory. There is NO compulsory elementary school and there WAS NEVER a compulsory elementary school. But Diana doesn't touch on the real point, just says, "Gosh, a boo-boo, but it isn't important."

I review grant applications for a foundation. I've been reviewing grant applications for over ten years now. If I received a grant application with an obvious error, or with questionable claims, I would call up the grantee and ask some pointed questions about the content of the grant application. I would be irresponsible if I recommended a grant to somebody who was spouting inaccuracies, and way beyond irresponsible if I recommended a grant to someone who included obvious falsehoods in their grant application.

It isn't okay to lie in a grant application. A grant application is a request for money for a particular purpose. Requesting money using false information is fraud. Certainly, it is possible to make a mistake on a grant application. An HONEST applicant who discovers they have made a mistake, contacts the grantor and submits a correction.

So, even if the lawyer did the whole thing all by himself, as Dan Dugan claims (a most unlikely story), at some point Dan received a copy of the grant materials. At that point he could have corrected the various errors. Ms. Snell, whose name is on the grant application could have corrected the various errors. Neither of them bothered.

I don't think, at this point, that holding them responsible for the statements that appear on this grant application is particularly harsh.

The folks they submitted the application to? Either incompetent, stupid, or longing to be suckered. They obviously didn't make the slightest attempt to verify ANY of the information submitted.

Posted by Deborah at 7:55 PM | Comments (2)

May 20, 2006

A Peculiar Grant Application Submitted by PLANS

Did People for Legal and Non-Sectarian Schools lie on their grant application to the Alliance Defense Fund which was submitted in 1997? You be the judge. Below are some quotes from the grant application, followed by questions and concerns about the accuracy of these statements. I’m also hoping to include explanations and excuses offered by friends and representatives of PLANS, to provide a full picture of the controversy.

As a public magnet school, Oakridge Elementary School in the Sacramento City Unified School District established a Waldorf educational program. This program included requiring children to fold their arms and chant, say a pledge to the sun flag, and other Wicca based religious practices. Rougly [sic] a third of the parents requested that their children be opted out of these religious based activities. The school district refused and told them that they would simply need to take their children to another school. Many of these parents are low income and cannot afford to drive their children to another school. Additionally, in Sutter County, students are sent on a compulsory basis to a Waldorf school (Yuba City Elementary School) when they have discipline problems at their former school.

1) “fold their arms and chant”
a)What does this mean?
b)What is being described here?
c)Is this supposed to be something weird going on just at this one school?
d)or is it supposed to be a universal practice?

2)”say a pledge to the sun flag”
a)What sun flag?
b)What pledge?
c and d same as number 1

3)”other Wicca based religious practices.”
a)What does Wicca have to do with Waldorf?
b)Please explain the following statements by Dan Dugan in relation to the “Wicca” quote in the grant application:
Question to Mr. Dugan:
"Is it your belief that students at John Morse (public school) are learning witchcraft?"
Mr. Dugan:
"No."
Question to Mr. Dugan:
"Is it your belief that students at Yuba River (public school) are learning witchcraft?"
Mr. Dugan:
"No."
Question to Mr. Dugan:
"It’s not your belief that Waldorf (Education) is the work of Satan?"
Mr. Dugan:
"I do not believe that Waldorf is the work of Satan."
(Source: Sworn deposition by Mr. Dugan in the case of "PLANS vs Sacramento Unified School District and Twin Ridges School District" lawsuit, Volume II, April 1, 1999, pp. 160 and 163.)

4)”Rougly [sic] a third of the parents requested that their children be opted out of these religious based activities.”
a)This is stated as though the parents spontaneously noticed that there was a problem at the school and demanded relief. The actual series of events are described here: http://www.americans4waldorf.org/History.html So, PLANS provoked the parents into outrage by feeding them false information about witchcraft, and then used that same outrage and misinformation to request grant support. Please provide ethical justification, or an alternative explanation.
b)Please also provide a copy of the leaflet distributed by PLANS “outside the school, protesting that Waldorf methods had been implemented at the school in September 1996.
According to the Sacramento Bee:
‘Several pickets said they were 'in the dark' as to what was happening at Oak Ridge until PLANS - People for Legal and Nonsectarian Schools - began distributing leaflets outside the school.’ [from AWE, see link above])
c)does the leaflet in question include allegations of Wicca practices?

5)Additionally, in Sutter County, students are sent on a compulsory basis to a Waldorf school (Yuba City Elementary School) when they have discipline problems at their former school.”
a)There has only been one compulsory Waldorf public school in California: T.E. Mathews School. TE Mathews is not an elementary school and is in Yuba County. Yuba City is indeed in Sutter County, but Mathews school is in Marysville, Yuba County. Additionally, there is no Yuba City Elementary School at all.
b)So which school is the grant application referring to? It needs to exist (or have existed in 1997) and be compulsory (or have been compulsory in 1997). And it should be an elementary school.

Response from Dan Dugan of PLANS:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anthroposophy_tomorrow/message/26186

Response to Dan’s response by Linda Clemens:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anthroposophy_tomorrow/message/26197

Posted by Deborah at 7:40 PM | Comments (0)

May 9, 2006

"The Bet" Chapter II

It’s been over six months ago now that Deborah made this very simple
offer.

**
This example of something that Steiner supposedly
"said" has been up on the PLANS web-site for years. It
is the first paragraph of an article by Peter
Staudenmaier entitled: Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.

In June, 1910, Rudolf Steiner, the founder of
anthroposophy, began a speaking tour of Norway with a
lecture to a large and attentive audience in Oslo. The
lecture series was titled "The Mission of National
Souls in Relation to Nordic-Germanic Mythology." In
the Oslo lectures Steiner presented his theory of
"national souls" (Volksseelen in German, Steiner's
native tongue) and paid particular attention to the
mysterious wonders of the "Nordic spirit." The
"national souls" of Northern and Central Europe
belonged, Steiner explained, to the "germanic-nordic"
peoples, the world's most spiritually advanced ethnic
group, which was in turn the vanguard of the highest
of five historical "root races." This superior fifth
root race, Steiner told his Oslo audience, was
naturally the "Aryan" race. [1]

I would like to challenge the Waldorf Critics to
verify this quote by providing:

1)The full quote.
2)The date and title of the lecture in question.
3)The GA number of the volume wherein it was
published.

I will personally donate $50 to PLANS for their court
case if anyone can verify this quote.
A few ground rules - the lecture proffered must have
been given in Norway. The quote needs to be translated
into English, but it would be best if it could also be
provided in German. If the quote provided includes
ellipses, the amount of skipped text must be
identified in brackets. I have ten days after a quote
is offered to research the quote and confirm that it
is indeed an accurate reflection of Steiner's spoken
words. The sample quotes need to be offered as
comments on this blog. Any irrelevant quotes (attempts
to prove that Steiner was indeed a racist by quoting
other stuff, not connected with the example above)
will result in $5 being subtracted from the proposed
donation each time such a quote is put forward. And,
to be even meaner, I will only publish the citation
for such quotes, not the quote themselves.
I'm waiting...I have a feeling I'll be waiting a very,
very long time.
***


And indeed Deborah was right. It has been a long
time.

I offered to match her challenge, and having seen no
entry made here to meet it, I was about to urge Deborah to
to declare victory and celebrate by sharing a few episodes of
a similar defeat dealt Peter Staudenmaier by Sune Nordwall.

I was perturbed to find Diana Winters today accusing
Deborah of ducking it, pronouncing that we’d lost
the bet at the Waldorf Critics List. Upon investigating there
I found Peter Staudenmaier had made the same assertion
against me there—accusing me of ducking the bet as well.

Peter Staudenmaier’s quite a thinker, or so he would like us to
believe, and he certainly should be in comparison to the simple
minded ‘grandmotherly librarian’ and ‘anthropology
student’ who came together to put forward this
challenge. How is it that a man that pure smart
couldn’t for the life of him figure out just how in
the heck to actually conform to the rules of this
contest and submit his entry into this blog?

He didn’t deliver his entry to the contest. Apparently
we were expected to go out LOOKING for it. Hmm.
Where to look? Did he enter it on the WC list. Wrong.
Not that I could find after wasting considerable time
looking. Apparently, we’re not only expected to go out
looking for it. We’re expected to look under every rock
and behind every tree to find it.

And lo……………eventually, I have. Peter didn’t post it here.
He didn’t post it there. It was more like a relay.
Peter handed it off to Dan. And Dan posted it to the
WC list. But it never posted here. Come to find out
from Deborah just now, a communication from Dan Dugan
was submitted, but it was half e-jibberish, probably
on account of it having been forwarded and reforwarded
several times before it was actually submitted to the
blog. She returned it requesting that it be cleaned
up first so that a body could actually read it, and
never heard another word from either of them. It
would appear somebody on that relay team plumb dropped
the baton.

The treasure hunt itself has been tedious enough, but
now that I have found it, I discover I have to
continue digging because if there’s really a direct
answer in there somewhere, it sure is bundled up in a
lot of excess padding.

So Peter—if you’re out there listening, are these
posts I found at the WC, sent by Dan, but forwarded to
him from you—are they really what you want to enter
into this contest? Because if you say ‘yes’, I have
to ask---‘why’? Why do you need to submit a twenty
page long, 7000 word explanation to validate this One
Single Paragraph of your article??????????????? This
explanation is just about as long as your entire
article itself. It’s longer than every one of
Steiner’s Christiana lectures, save the last one. And
it sure doesn’t seem to me something so simple could
possibly need so many words to say.

But if this is what you really want to submit, go
ahead. See that section below where it says
“Comments”? That’s where your entry needs to go.
Just as it says in the original directions Deborah
outlined when she offered this challenge.

Posted by Linda at 2:57 PM