St. Louis school system rejects Scientology's Applied Scholastics program http://www.pressbox.co.uk/detailed/Education/St._Louis_school_system_rejects_Scientology_s_Applied_Scholastics_program_37342.html

Education: St. Louis school system rejects Scientology's Applied Scholastics program

Added: (Sun Sep 25 2005)

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported on September 22 that the district's superintendent of education has decided that teachers will no longer participate in training programs offered by Applied Scholastics International, a front group of the Church of Scientology. Teachers who had attended these programs were uncomfortable with what they saw there, and complained to their union. School Board member Bill Purdy called for an investigation of the program last week, and after visiting the center, expressed his own concerns about all the materials being labeled 'based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard.'

Mr. Purdy was right to be concerned. What Applied Scholastics promotes as secular "study technology" is actually covert instruction in the Scientology religion. The practices of "word clearing" and "clay table demos" come directly from the Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, volumes found in every Scientology church. ASI's supposedly secular textbooks teach three versions of word clearing: methods 3, 9, and 7. What they doh't disclose is that methods 1, 2, 4, and 5 involve use of the E-meter, a crude lie detector device that Scientology insists be used only for spiritual counseling by trained Scientology ministers, called "auditors".

Education experts such as Johanna Lemlech at USC, Sidnie Myrick at UCLA, MaryEllen Vogt at Cal State Long Beach, and Victoria Purcell-Gates at Harvard (now at Michigan State) have dismissed study technology as educationally unsound and potentially harmful.

Applied Scholastics' parent organization, the Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE), is run by members of Scientology's paramilitary Sea Organization. Sea Org members sign billion year contracts promising to serve the church over countless reincarnations. ABLE's regional offices in cities like New York and Clearwater are in Church of Scientology buildings. Furthermore, ABLE and Applied Scholastics are listed as "Scientology-affiliated entities" in the Church of Scientology's filings with the US Internal Revenue Service.

More information about study technology and Applied Scholastics International is available at http://StudyTech.org.

The St. Louis school board would do well to visit that web site if ASI presses for reconsideration of their decision.

Scientology's "study technology" has no place in the public schools.

Submitted by: StudyTech.org info@studytech.org

Subject: RTC: how Bennetta Slaughter screwed ABLE
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
From: dst@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Message-ID: <434b3af0$1@news2.lightlink.com>
Date: 11 Oct 2005 00:09:20 -0400

I want to spell out exactly how Bennetta Slaughter has managed to screw ABLE through false reports and gross incompetence. Bennetta is the ED of Applied Scholastics International; ABLE is the parent organization for Applied Scholastics, Narconon, and a couple of other Scientology front groups.

When the Saint Louis board of education was looking into teacher complaints about the training seminars being offered at Applied Scholastics, Bennetta showed up for the public meeting. In a conversation with education journalist Peter Downs, Bennetta announced that Applied Scholastics would be partnering with the Hazelwood Public Schools to offer tutoring services to students in that district. She made this statement to Downs in front of two other witnesses, one of whom was St. Louis school board member Bill Purdy. It was a lie.

Downs reported Slaughter's claim in an article he published in the Saint Louis Argus, and in his Saint Louis Schools Watch newsletter. This so enraged the superintendent of the Hazelwood school system, Dr. Chris Wright, that she wrote a strongly worded letter to Slaughter telling her to knock it off, and reminding her that Hazelwood wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Slaughter's organization. Dr. Wright made her letter public; it's webbed at StudyTech.org, along with the article that Downs wrote. Dr. Wright also wrote to Dr. Kent King, Commissioner of Education for the State oF Missouri, asking that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reconsider its certification of Applied Scholastics as an approved provider of tutoring services.

Political pressure is building on King to act. So Bennetta's little lie has blown up into a major threat to the future of Applied Scholastics in Missouri. But Bennetta is not content to tick off one school superintendent. She, Mary Smith, and a director of ABLE have been harassing the union official who first took the St. Louis teachers' complaints to the board. Rubbing salt in the wound, so to speak. She's busily digging a deeper hole for herself, for her organization, and for ABLE.

Now there is a growing desire in Missouri to be rid of Applied Scholastics. Some other players have gotten involved, but I don't want to reveal their identities just yet.

I'd hate to be WDC ABLE. Whoever is holding that post is going to get a beating at the next meeting called by DM. And it's all because of Bennetta's lie.

At this point, Bennetta should probably join the Sea Org so she can do the RPF. She must have some really heavy duty evil purpose. I only wish I knew what it was.

-- Dave Touretzky: "This is true." http://StudyTech.org

Subject: Re: how Bennetta Slaughter screwed ABLE
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
From: dst@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Message-ID: <434b4cbc$1@news2.lightlink.com>
Date: 11 Oct 2005 01:25:16 -0400

In article <scKdndANcKf639beRVn-sw@comcast.com>, Quaoar <quaoar@tenthplanet.net> wrote:

>BS (how one's name can become synonymous with behavior!) has been a
>player in the Slatkin fraud, Lisa McPherson's death, and now this
>Applied Scholastics debacle. In all of these she has been proved to be
>a pathological liar. History show that she has no ability to discern
>the difference between truth and falsehood and the consequences of her
>lying for her, personally, and for the kult. She is well on the road to
>becoming the best documented "poster child" for kult duplicity.

Yes, there's a web page devoted to Bennetta's adventures:

http://slatkinfraud.com/slaughter.php

Looks like it's time to add another chapter to that page.

Bennetta really does seem to be the SP on the church lines: everything she touches blows up in their face.

-- Dave Touretzky: "And my job is to keep her supplied with matches." http://StudyTech.org

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