State Senators realize they're embarrassing

Sadly, I am not referring to those involved in the Buttars letter scandal, but rather the I.B.-schools-are-anti-American-scandal.

Although HB266 passed the House unanimously earlier this month, it ran into trouble when Dayton said she was "opposed to the anti-American philosophy that's somehow woven into all the classes as they promote the U.N. agenda," then voted with Peterson and Stepheson to kill the bill.
Since then, current and former I.B. students and their parents have deluged [Republican Sen. Margaret] Dayton and other lawmakers with e-mails asking them to reconsider. I.B. students from Syracuse Junior High School also visited the Capitol and [Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay] has worked behind the scenes to resuscitate her proposal.
"I talked to wiser, more reasonable people . . . who realized it would be an embarrassment to our state if that story went national," she said. "The public outcry was so big."

The one positive thing out of this was that these kids learned how to lobby their state legislature and they as members of the public need to keep a watchful eye on the Legislature.

Sen. Dayton apologized "for not being more appropriate" when she characterized International Baccalaureate programs as "anti-American," and blocked $300,000 for I.B. programs. Rep. Moss was able only to get a third of that money back.

My question is where did Sen. Dayton get her information that I.B. programs were "anti-American"? Was it the word "international" that scared her off? Or that fancy word "Baccalaureate," you know, the "B" in "B.A."?

"It's an extraordinary program," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said Thursday of I.B., in which his own son is enrolled. "We need more of them, not fewer." Dayton acknowledged Thursday that the program "does a lot of good things in Utah." She said she was concerned about "what happened in other states that had trouble with it" and worried about making sure entities outside Utah weren't controlling education.

What exactly has happened in other states that she is concerned about? Does she really think that some international organization is indoctrinating Utah children? The whole point of I.B. programs is that you take a test at the end that makes your students directly comparable to students at schools in the U.K. and other english-language based schools in other countries. I had a German friend in college who went to a college prep school with lots of kids from the U.S. embassy and American businessmen's children and he took I.B. courses so he could go to an American University.

Sen. Dayton blames her performance on her constituents.

"I apologize for not being more appropriate in my comments in committee," Dayton wrote. "It was my understanding that members of the public were planning to express concerns about the I.B. program. When they did not present in committee, I felt a need to reflect their concerns."

Does she and othose who wrote/called her really the same people who think the U.N. is trying to take away our guns and the government is trying to poison us by putting floride in our drinking water? If so, Sen. Dayton, you don't have to be their mouth piece. US Rep. Jim Matheson gets lots of letters every day asking him to hold hearings on Area 51 and how the moon landing was faked (I read some of these letters), but he doesn't give voice to those conspiracy theorists. He actually tries help Utahns by blocking Italian nuclear waste from coming into the state. Sen. Dayton could learn a thing or two from him it seems.