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presumably parents who send their kids to religious schools do so for a reason and know what they're in for.
7 absurd things America’s kids are learning thanks to conservatives
A Beka Book is one of the three most widely used Protestant fundamentalist textbook publishers in the country, along with Bob Jones University Publishing, published in Greenville South Carolina, andAccelerated Christian Education, published in Lewisville, Texas. Forty-three percent of the religous voucher schools that responded to a 2003 Palm Beach Post survey based their curricula on either A Beka or Bob Jones. A Beka Book estimates that 9,000 schools use its books in the classroom.
Founded by Arlin and Rebekah (Beka) Horton in 1972, A Beka Book provides “excellence in education from a Christian perspective.” Since 1977, A Beka Book has operated out of the unaccredited Arlin-founded Pensacola Christian College (PCC) in Florida. Among other rules, PCC has a zero tolerance policy for “optical intercourse” or staring too intently into the eyes of a member of the opposite sex (also known as “making eye babies”).
Though the publisher won’t reveal its finances, over the years, sales from A Beka Book have paid for PCC’s construction projects ($300 million) and annual scholarships ($2 million). Though the publisher used to enjoy a tax-exempt status, that privilege was revoked in 1995 because the company was (surprise!) found to be a profit-making en y. In 1998, A Beka Book paid the IRS an estimated $44.5 million to “remove any question as to our Christian responsibility in the matter of back taxes.”
The Hortons are as rigorous intellectually as they are ethically and fiscally. Here are seven invaluable lessons children learn from their A Beka Book texts, thanks in part to your tax dollars.
1. Mathematics: The Devil’s Playground
The publishing company boasts that, “Unlike the ‘modern math’ theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Book texts teach that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute.”
The great news for people like me who don’t really enjoy math is that A Beka Book provides “traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory.“ It’s unclear why the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets and is considered to be a foundational system for mathematics is so anathema to God. I assume focusing on the “union of sets” encourages too much premarital coupling and promiscuity.
2. Critical Thinking: There’s a Mnemonic Device For That
A Beka Book’s Health in Christian Perspective textbook makes it extremely clear that there is one and only one “Christian World View.” In that view, abortion—defined as “the killing of babies before birth”— for example, is a sin. But A Beka Book doesn’t just tell students what to think, it empowers them to think for themselves by employing the all-important “Biblical Discernment” method.
Like so many of Beka’s critical thinking tools, this one comes in the form of a mnemonic device: “Use the DISCERN method,” Beka instructs, “to determine whether abortion is biblical.” The method allows students to make an informed godly choice around any issue, not just abortion. Once they’ve figured out whether something is biblical or not, they can engage in it and praise it, or refrain from doing it and condemn it. Here’s how DISCERN works:
- Determine your choices
- Inquire of God through prayer
- Search the scriptures
- Consider godly counsel.
- Eliminate worldly thinking.
- Recognize God’s leading.
- Never compromise the truth.
This handy mnemonic is great for moralizing and judging on the run!
3. Science: Yahweh or the Highway
Health in Christian Perspective also explains that,
“A non-Christian world view is any one that is based on the belief that there is something more reliable than the bible. The belief may come from church traditions scientific conclusions, or various theories. The most important teachings to be found in a Christian World View are… God made the world and everything in it; The world has fallen into a tragic state because of sin; and God is working to redeem this world to Himself.”
Science that contradicts these notions, the people at A Beka Book explain, is just plain wrong. “These three teachings should influence your interpretation of any facts you study,” they note. “And if you are serious about being a Christian, they must color your view of scientific thinking.”
Also crucial is the instruction not to stray from God’s path by using science to help people. “Others may be curious about the world of nature simply because they want to improve the lives of other humans. Although Christians should also be interested in that, they should mainly be interested in loving God through the study of nature.” I wonder if the Hortons want their doctors to prioritize loving God over helping their patients?
4. Guns: Our Only Protection from Nazism and Globalism
Beka’s United States History—Heritage of Freedom In Christian Perspective reminds us that the men who founded this great nation would totally oppose background checks: “The founding fathers… understood that unarmed citizens would not be able to stand against a tyrannical government.” Gun control, according to this text, is simply a “gateway to tyranny.” The book’s exhaustive analysis of world history backs up this brilliant assertion: “A study of Hitler’s, Stalin’s and Mao’s ideas on disarming their citizens shows… they were well aware of the concept that control thrives when people are unarmed.”
As an added bonus, guns are also a way for America to fight against creeping… globalism: “Armed citizens could also play a major role in thwarting Globalism, the idea to bring the world together under ‘one global government.’ making the cons ution null and void.” This really speaks to America’s youth, who are nothing if not extremely concerned about globalism.
5. The Death Penalty: The Sanc y of Life Manifested
America: Land I Love In Christian Perspective laments that the death penalty, and thus the sanc y of life, have become less hip. Back in the good old days, “because people believed in the sanc y of human life, most states practiced capital punishment.”
A Beka Book knows what God was thinking when he killed people for crimes like pros ution, bearing false witness, and not crying out while being raped (if you are betrothed): “Most people believed God ins uted capital punishment to discourage murder and to teach mankind the value of human life.”
Of course, “most people” doesn’t include people who opposed the death penalty. Like Jesus Christ.
6. STDs: What Happens When you Disobey God
Beka’s Health In Christian Perspective text also teaches that sexually transmitted diseases are caused by sacrilegious behavior: “Disobedience to God’s Word in the area of sexual purity can also lead to disease.” And statistically speaking, A Beka Book tells us, it is almost impossible to contract diseases from a spouse:
“Some infections, known as… STDs, are almost always spread by direct bodily contact during illicit sexual relations (sexual relations outside God’s ins ution of marriage). People who live according to God’s standards of waiting until marriage to have sexual relations are very unlikely to acquire venereal diseases.”
There is no correlation, in the Beka world view, between “sex education” and preventing STDs, because such diseases aren’t caused by “a lack of scientific information or ‘sex education’ but a lack of morality and righteousness.” While A Beka Book neither believes in nor provides any “sex education,” they do offer a lifesaving “Personal Checkup” checklist, encouraging students to check boxes for things like, “I wash my hands thoroughly on a regular basis” and “I obey biblical principles regarding morality, self-control, at ude, and anxiety.”
“Unchecked boxes” the book warns, “identify conditions of risk.”
7. sexuality: Cultural Decay
sexuality is listed under United States History—Heritage of Freedom In Christian Perspective’s “Cultural Decay” section: “Traditional American family values have dramatically declined….When [the family] comes under attack, all of society suffers.”
Though it’s not clear how, the media have emboldened sexuality by showing violence and attacking fathers and husbands: “The media has increasingly belittled fathers and husbands, portrayed blatant violence, and laughed at immorality. One result has been the increased acceptance of sexuality.”
In other words: Every time there is violence on the screen, or a man is mocked by a feminist, or a heathen cracks up over sin, a sexual is recruited and a family is attacked. But you already knew that.
This is but a mere sampling of A Beka’s righteous lessons. Check back soon for more.
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/04/7_absurd_things_americas_kids_are_learning_thanks_ to_conservatives_partner/
Last edited by boutons_deux; 03-30-2014 at 08:57 AM.
presumably parents who send their kids to religious schools do so for a reason and know what they're in for.
The Religious Right Crusades to Deny Americans Their Cons utional Rights
there is a rabid movement in America that not only eschews the Cons ution as faulty and irrelevant, they actively reject it with alarming frequency. The religious right, teabaggers, and their Republican facilitators claim they love this nation and its founding do ent more than any other demographic in America, and regularly claim returning to the original intent of the Cons ution is their raison d’être. However, for at least a half-a-century one specific demographic has made a concerted effort to abolish the Cons ution that so-called “real Americans” have adopted with a clear goal of scrapping the founding do ent save the 2nd and 10th Amendments.
The primary target of teabaggers (their chosen name) and the religious right is the 1stand 14th Amendments, Article VI, Section 2, and Article III Sections 1 and 2 that defines the Cons ution as the supreme law of the land and the judicial branch as the arbiter of the cons utionality of any law.
Although the frequency of challenges to the Cons ution’s validity as the law of the land have increased since the election of the first African American President, the efforts to reject the Cons ution began in earnest well over 75 years ago.
The primary argument of those who hate the Cons ution is that “the word of God as revealed in the Bible takes priority over all human knowledge,” and it is used today more than in 1927 when theocrats argued the bible should be taught in public schools.
Forty-one years later, the Supreme Court ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas that banning the teaching of evolution contravened the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the theocrats primary purpose in teaching the bible as science is purely religious.The purpose of this screed is not to argue that the Christian bible is not the law of the land, or that the judicial system has supreme authority to adjudicate what is, and is not cons utional, but rather, that
the religious right has rejected the Cons ution and Supreme Court rulings for decades with veritable impunity and have no intention of stopping.
Recently there was an article decrying the religious right’s attempt to abridge Americans’ civil and human rights according to their claim religious liberty affords them the dog-given authority to abridge other Americans’ Cons utional protections. The premise of the article is beyond dispute; the religious right, teabaggers, and Republicans are on a crusade to deny Americans their Cons utional rights,
but it failed to acknowledge the religious right’s campaign is founded on their rejection and hatred of the Cons ution they are convinced is subservient to the Christian bible. It is a hatred they have harbored since the founding of this nation as evidenced by their continued attempts over 200 years to impose biblical law on Americans.It has been forty years since the Supreme Court ruled, in Roe v. Wade, that it is a woman’s Cons utional right to decide when to give birth, and yet Republicans in states and the United States Congress have rejected the High Court’s ruling as illegitimate, and by extension deny the Cons ution as law of the land as they continue passing legislation restricting women’s Cons utional rights because it is contrary to evangelical zealots’ Christian bible. Today there are as many attempts to abort the High Court’s ruling as there are evangelicals claiming god’s law supersedes the Cons ution.It has been 46 years since the High Court ruled that teaching the bible creation story as science in public schools is patently uncons utional.
The religious right attempted to re-litigate the High Court’s ruling again in 2005 when they renamed creationism “intelligent design” that was ruled uncons utional because it was still “teaching religion.” The religious right cannot comport the Cons utional authority of the judicial system to rule that the Establishment and Separation clauses are the law of the land.
Republicans are frantically passing uncons utional legislation inserting creationism as science in public schools and stealing taxpayer dollars for public schools to fund private religious instruction to teach the bible as science.
It has been 52 years since the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools is a violation of the Cons ution and the judicial system have been vigilant in forbidding public schools and other government agencies from interfering with Americans’ cons utional right to follow their own consciences when it comes to religion. Republicans and the religious right disagree with the High Courts’ Cons utional authority to rule that official prayer had no place in public education, and with state Republican legislation are using devious means to force America’s children to be indoctrinated into the Christian religion by mandating teacher-led prayers.The following year the High Court ruled in Abington Township School District v. Schempp, another case dealing with prayer in public schools, that school-sponsored bible reading and recitation of the lord’s prayer was uncons utional. In fact, in the written opinion Justice Clark wrote, “Once again, we are called upon to consider the scope of the provision of the First Amendment to the United States Cons ution which declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’.” Even the High Court acknowledged that regardless the U.S. Cons ution, and Supreme Court rulings,
the religious right cannot, and will not, accept that American law is not the purview of “the word of God as revealed in the Bible,” or that it does not “take priority over all human knowledge”
including the Cons ution as law of the land.Some naïve Americans believed that last year’s Supreme Court ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage would put an abrupt end to Republican and the religious right’s biblical prohibition on same-sex marriage, and yet the decision only served to embolden fanatical Christians who are rabid to reject the Cons ution and impose the bible as the law of the land.
It has been less than a year since the High Court ruled the Cons ution affords all Americans 14th Amendment equal rights, but there has been no shortage of Republican legislation in states and Congress to subvert the Cons utional authority of the Supreme Court. Republicans and evangelicals will continue attempting to deny gay Americans’ equal protection under the law despite ruling after decision striking down bans on marriage equality in Republican-controlled states.
Any American that believes the religious right’s attack on human rights, the U.S. Cons ution, and other Americans is insignificant, or on the decline and not a threat to democracy, is either incredibly naïve or has not been paying attention to what is happening in this country with increasing frequency.
The religious right has about as much respect for the Cons ution as they do other Americans’ rights, and they have been engaged in a long-term effort to destroy both in the pursuit of theocracy as America’s government for decades.
Invariably, some Christians object to being lumped in with evangelical fanatics rejecting the Cons utions’ protection from religious imposition and domination. They proclaim loudly that they are opposed to forcing the Christian religion down the throats of Americans or denying other Americans their cons utionally-protected equal rights and it is certainly true. But it is difficult to take “those Christians” seriously while they clutch that bible to their bosoms and “cherry-pick” the “Jesus parts” out of the preponderance of hateful parts. Many, many Americans fail to see any difference between their cherry picking and evangelical extremists choosing passages to subvert the Cons ution and Americans’ civil and human rights.Frankly, few Americans, even Secular Humanists, could not care less how or why any American chooses to follow any religion and have no desire to abridge their right to worship as they see fit.
But when they claim Christianity gives them authority to deny other Americans’ their Cons utional rights, and seek to destroy the Cons ution and democracy, then maybe it is time to reconsider their right to religious freedom if for no other reason than to defend the Cons ution from its greatest threat; Christians who will not accept that the bible is not the law of the land.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/03/...iticus+USA+%29
"Christians"
Interesting article.
I will shamelessly create a thread on it, as it touches on an interesting myth among christians.
Taxpayers fund creationism in the classroom
Taxpayers in 14 states will bankroll nearly $1 billion this year in tuition for private schools, including hundreds of religious schools that teach Earth is less than 10,000 years old, Adam and Eve strolled the garden with dinosaurs, and much of modern biology, geology and cosmology is a web of lies.
Now a major push to expand these voucher programs is under way from Alaska to New York, a development that seems certain to sharply increase the investment.
Public debate about science education tends to center on bills like one in Missouri, which would allow public school parents to pull their kids from science class whenever the topic of evolution comes up. But the more striking shift in public policy has flown largely under the radar, as a well-funded political campaign has pushed to open the spigot for tax dollars to flow to private schools. Among them are Bible-based schools that train students to reject and rebut the cornerstones of modern science.
Decades of litigation have established that public schools cannot teach creationism or intelligent design. But private schools receiving public subsidies can — and do. A POLITICO review of hundreds of pages of course outlines, textbooks and school websites found that many of these faith-based schools go beyond teaching the biblical story of the six days of creation as literal fact. Their course materials nurture disdain of the secular world, distrust of momentous discoveries and hostility toward mainstream scientists.
They often distort basic facts about the scientific method — teaching, for instance, that theories such as evolution are by definition highly speculative because they haven’t been elevated to the status of “scientific law.”
And this approach isn’t confined to high school biology class; it is typically threaded through all grades and all subjects.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...sm-104934.html
5 Even Worse Lies from Accelerated Christian Education
http://leavingfundamentalism.wordpre...ian-education/
the Texas Christian Taleban assholes won't stop
How Creationists in Texas Are Pressuring Schoolbook Publishers to Bring God into Biology
It seems creationists in Texas have resorted to bullying and lying in an attempt to force evolution out of the classroom.
In November 2013 the Texas State Board of Education adopted new science standards for its textbooks that will bring evolution into the Texas public school classroom.
All eyes were on Texas as the SBOE voted on the new proposed changes to the science curriculum that would change textbooks around the US.
Texas is the largest purchaser of public school textbooks. Because publishers do not want to publish different textbooks around the US, they look toward Texas for what they will be including in the new books each year. As goes Texas, goes the nation.
This can be bad news if special interest groups such as the misleadingly named group, Educational Research Analysts (ERA), get their way. ERA is a creationist lobbying group that stood firmly against the 2013 decision to introduce evolution into Texas classrooms.
Neil Frey, acting on behalf of ERA, has been aggressively lobbying since the decision to change much of the wording in the textbooks. Frey’s complaint, filed with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) alleges that Pearson Education’s high school biology textbook is wrong in explaining the close similarities between chimpanzee and human DNA. The textbook states that scientific evidence shows that chimpanzees are the closest living genetic relatives of humans.
Chimpanzees are in fact the closest living relative to humans, but creationists do not like that, so they file complaints. Pearson responded to these claims, disputing Frey’s complaints, stating that making these changes would be misleading to students' education.
Now Frey has convinced an SBOE board member, Barbara Cargill, that his claims are valid. This comes as no real surprise as Cargill was a board member who opposed the standards change from the beginning.
In an email between Cargill and a TEA staff member, obtained under the state's open records law by the Texas Freedom Network, Cargill tries to pressure TEA into siding with Frey and forcing all the publishers to update their texts or risk massive fines.
Cargill writes in her email:
“Pearson has been very hard-nosed during this adoption, so I hope staff at least agrees that these 3 items must be changed, especially knowing that 3 other publishers agreed to the changes. ( LIE! )
If the science experts at McGraw, Houghton, and STEMscopes agreed with Neal, that says a lot. Neal does his homework, and I looked into it too, just to be sure. The research is solid, accurate and current.”
But did three other publishers agree to make these changes, as Cargill states? It does not appear so. None of the publishers have shown any signs that they are agreeing to the changes and STEM scopes have said outright that they are not. ( "scopes" ?)
Cargill also doesn’t seem to have gotten board approval or worked with any other SBOE board members before emailing TEA and attempting to pressure them into making Frey’s changes. Her colleagues voted in favor of the changes and it would seem odd they would then back up her mission to undo them.
To claim that both Frey and Cargill have “done their homework” on these claims is blatantly dishonest as the claims made in the textbooks are fully in line with scientific evidence and consensus on human and chimpanzee DNA.
This action seems to be a new low, even for creationists in an effort to undermine scientific education. Groups like ERA know that if they can change textbooks in Texas, it is a nationwide victory. They will stop at nothing to perpetrate their myth at the expense of American students.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/how-c...age=1#bookmark
Thanks, Repugs and all y'all redneck/Christian voters who elect TX Repugs who permit, encourage this kind of from REPUG appointees.
Nation Apparently Believed in Science at Some Point
Historians studying archival photographs from four decades ago have come to the conclusion that the U.S. must have believed in science at some point.
According to the historian Davis Logsdon, who has been sifting through mounds of photographic evidence at the University of Minnesota, the nation apparently once held the view that investing in science and even math could yield accomplishments that would be a source of national pride.
While Logsdon has not developed a complete theory to explain the United States’ pro-science stance during that era, he attributes some of it to the liberal views of the President at that time, Richard M. Nixon.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borow...rowitz%20(106)
Last edited by boutons_deux; 07-21-2014 at 10:26 AM.
Creationist Ken Ham calls to end space program because aliens are going to anyway
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/2...e+Raw+Story%29
Hey, Bible-thumpers, y'all got some real all-stars on your team!
Air Force academy seems thoroughly polluted with Christian Taleban
The Air Force Won’t Allow An Atheist Airman To Reenlist Unless He Swears A Religious Oath
An unnamed airman in the United States Air Force wants to continue to serve his country. Yet, the Air Force reportedly told him that his service is unwanted unless he swears an oath that concludes with the religious affirmation “so help me God.” According to the Air Force Times, the airman crossed out the words “so help me God” when he signed his reenlistment contract.
He was subsequently told that he must either swear this religious oath or leave the service.
In justifying this decision, an Air Force spokesperson pointed to a federal law, which requires “[e]ach person enlisting in an armed force” to take an oath that concludes with the four words this airman finds objectionable. He did agree to the other portions of the oath, which includes a promise to “support and defend the Cons ution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me.”
Although this Air Force spokesperson is correct that Congress did pass a law stating that members of the armed forces should swear an oath that includes the words “So help me God,” the Cons ution trumps an act of Congress, and requiring servicemembers to comply with this portion of the law is almost certainly uncons utional. In the 1961 case Torcaso v. Watkins, the Supreme Court held that “neither a State nor the Federal Government can cons utionally force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.’”
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/201...eligious-oath/
An Air Force Academy "Christian" grad:
Colorado GOP: Demon-obsessed ex-Navy chaplain has ‘no business in public office’
On Thursday, the Colorado Springs Independent newspaper published an article on the state House candidacy of former Navy Chaplain Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt, a far-right evangelical Christian who is so radical that even state Republicans are disavowing his candidacy.
Right Wing Watch reported that 46-year-old Klingenschmitt’s recent statement that openly gay Rep. Jared Polis (D) is going to join ISIS and start beheading Christians in the U.S. has sent GOP officials scrambling to create some distance between themselves and the pastor, who has a long history of outlandish comments.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/0...e+Raw+Story%29
MRRF covers it well:
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY GRIPPED BY FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN FUROR, THREATS MOUNT
VS. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/press-releases/2014/Bible_Verse_3-13-14.html
TX Christian Taleban still fighting to indoctrinate children into their dishonest propaganda
Writing to the Standards:
Reviews of Proposed Social Studies Textbooks
for Texas Public Schools
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For the first time since 2002, the State Board of Education (SBOE) this fall will consider proposed new
social studies textbooks for all grades in Texas public schools. Extensive reviews of these textbooks,
sponsored by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, show that they suffer from many of the same
serious flaws that plague the state’s controversial curriculum standards for social studies the SBOE
approved in 2010.
The new textbooks must be based on those curriculum standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and
Skills, or TEKS. The standards have come under heavy fire ever since the SBOE approved them.
A scathing review from the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Ins ute in 2011, for example, called the
new U.S. History standards adopted by the SBOE a “politicized distortion of history” filled with
“misrepresentations at every turn.” Many of the problems Fordham identified were evident also in the
standards for the other social studies courses, especially U.S. government and world history.
Findings
Our reviewers’ broad findings noted below are followed by a listing of specific examples of problems
they identified during their examination of the textbooks up for adoption in Texas:
• A number of government and world history textbooks exaggerate Judeo-Christian influence on
the nation’s founding and Western political tradition. 4
• Two government textbooks include misleading information that undermines the Cons utional
concept of the separation of church and state.
• Several world history and world geography textbooks include biased statements that
inappropriately portray Islam and Muslims negatively.
• All of the world geography textbooks inaccurately downplay the role that conquest played in the
spread of Christianity.
• Several world geography and history textbooks suffer from an incomplete – and often inaccurate
– account of religions other than Christianity.
• Coverage of key Christian concepts and historical events are lacking in a few textbooks, often due
to the assumption that all students are Christians and already familiar with Christian events and
doctrine.
• A few government and U.S. history textbooks suffer from an uncritical celebration of the free
enterprise system, both by ignoring legitimate problems that exist in capitalism and failing to
include coverage of government’s role in the U.S. economic system.
• One government textbook flirts with contemporary Tea Party ideology, particularly regarding the
inclusion of anti-taxation and anti-regulation arguments.
• One world history textbook includes outdated – and possibly offensive – anthropological
categories and racial terminology in describing African civilizations.
• A number of U.S. history textbooks evidence a general lack of attention to Native American
peoples and culture and occasionally include biased or misleading information.
One government textbook (Pearson) includes a biased – verging on offensive – treatment of
affirmative action.
• Most U.S. history textbooks do a poor job of covering the history of LGBT citizens in discussions of
efforts to achieve civil rights in this country.
• Elements of the Texas curriculum standards give undue legitimacy to neo-Confederate arguments
about “states’ rights” and the legacy of slavery in the South. While most publishers avoid
problems with these issues, passages in a few U.S. history and government textbooks give a nod
to these misleading arguments.
http://www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/FI...pdf?docID=4625
Texas, Texans and the Christian Taleban.
Georgia teacher burns through sick days to protest criticism of classroom Bible-thumping
A history teacher in Cherokee County, Georgia has decided to take a week of sick days to protest those who criticize him for “bringing God into the classroom,” 11Alive reports.
Sequoyah High School teacher John Osborne said that he left because he didn’t feel the administration supported him. “I do have the right to fight for what I believe in and talk about Jesus in the classroom,” he told 11Alive, and claimed that he had been talking about Christ in the classroom “for years.”
But when a student complained that Osborne had told a class that pot smokers were going to , the administration brought Osborne in discuss the matter. He claimed that he never said such a thing, but admitted to regularly discussing Jesus Christ in his history classes.
“As I have grown in Christ,” he said, “it’s grown stronger in the classroom.”
When asked whether he would return after he used up his sick days, Osborne said, “I don’t know — only God knows — and I will pray about it.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/1...e+Raw+Story%29
If these GA Taleban had peanuts for brains, it would be a huge leap up in intelligence.
TX Christian Taliban news:
New Texas Social Studies Textbooks Draw Fire During Public Hearing
Too much negative about former President George W. Bush, too much positive about Hillary Rodham Clinton, and way too much coverage of Moses.
Those were among a long list of complaints — from both sides of the political spectrum — during an all-day hearing Tuesday on new history and social studies books for Texas public schools.
Most of the complaints centered on alleged biases in the textbooks and e-books that the State Board of Education will vote on in November. But more broadly, the hearing demonstrated how pitched battles over culture and politics are reflected in Texas’ schools and their curriculum. The materials will be distributed to schools in the fall of 2015.
Southern Methodist University history professor Kathleen Wellman told board members that several of the books on U.S. government and U.S. history exaggerate the influence of biblical figure Moses on America’s Founding Fathers.
“These books make Moses the original Founding Father and credit him for virtually every distinctive feature of American government,” Wellman said. “Moses shows up everywhere doing everything.”
She said publishers are trying to follow an ill-conceived curriculum requirement approved by the state board four years ago that called for more coverage of Moses and Mosaic Law in textbooks.
“This epitomizes the wrong-headed idea that the United States was founded on biblical law. The publishers are trying to conform to a standard without knowing how to do it,” Wellman said.
If the books are adopted as now written, she added, Texas schoolchildren will grow up “believing that Moses was the first American.”
On coverage of political figures, Emily McBurney of Temple said the Worldview company’s world history book has virtually nothing good to say about Bush, including the “increasingly low approval ratings” during his White House tenure and his continued resistance to evidence of human-caused climate change.
But Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady, receives 38 lines of glowing descriptions in the book, McBurney told the board.
“Her roles as secretary of state (2009-2013) has often been seen as having a dual purpose: to improve the image of the United States and its relationships with foreign nations that were seen as damaged by the Bush administration, and as an advocate for the impoverished and the hungry around the world,” the high school textbook read.
Extended criticism of the Worldview books led board member David Bradley (R-Beaumont) to remark: “Do you own any Worldview stock? Because I would recommend that you sell it.”
Bradley was part of the social conservative bloc on the board that in 2010 pushed through new curriculum standards for U.S. history and other social studies courses that reflected a much more conservative tone than the previous standards.
Several speakers who criticized the books Tuesday blamed many of their problems — including factual errors — on the standards adopted four years ago over the objections of Democrats and mainstream education groups.
But board president Barbara Cargill (R-The Woodlands) warned those in attendance that complaining about the standards now won’t do much good because they are now required in classroom instruction, achievement tests, and textbooks.
“We are not here to dive back into the curriculum standards,” she said. “That was over in 2010. We are here now to discuss textbooks.”
Other people testifying Tuesday cited unfair treatment of Muslims, Latinos, American Indians, and various minority groups.
Mustafaa Carroll of the Council of American-Islamic Relations told board members that some of the books unfairly blame the rise of international terrorism on Muslims and Islamic fundamentalism.
“Terrorist groups with nationalist and political agendas have formed in every part of the world,” said Carroll, who has headed the regional CAIR office in Dallas and Houston.
He cited the Irish Republican Army and “Jewish-Zionist terrorist groups who committed acts of terror in their quest to establish a Jewish state.”
Jacqueline Jones, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, criticized the Pearson U.S. history text for encouraging ideological biases “that are either outside the boundaries of established mainstream scholarship, or just plain wrong.”
The authors, she said, “seem determined to shield impressionable (high school) students from some of the unpleasant facts of our history.”
That includes former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, whose opposition to school integration and glorification of white supremacy is watered down, she said, to make it sound “as if he was appealing to those who did not like the Beatles’ music or their haircuts.”
“We do our students a disservice when we scrub history clean of unpleasant truths, and when we present an inaccurate view of the past that promotes a simple-minded, ideologically driven point of view,” she told the board.
Karin Gilliland of Garland, who said she spent more than 130 hours reviewing some of the books this summer, criticized the world history books that are now using B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) to replace B.C. and A.D. when citing historical dates. Some scholars use B.C.E. and C.E. to avoid using the central figure of Christianity, Jesus Christ, as the reference point for the important dates.
She also said that one of the books devalues the good in America. “I don’t see people flocking to Russia or Arabia or Africa. I see people flocking to America,” she said. “Our values are what make us great.”
Texas last adopted new social studies books in 2002. As one of the largest textbook purchasers in the nation, the state has a strong influence on books marketed in other states.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/new-texa...ublic-hearing/
The American Dream, ya gotta be asleep to believe it.
Texas Proposes Rewriting School Textbooks to Deny Man-Made Climate Change
In the proposed 6th grade texts, students were introduced to global warming amid false claims that there was scientific disagreement about its causes.
“Scientists agree that Earth’s climate is changing. They do not agree on what is causing the change,” the passage reads.
It quotes two staffers at the Heartland Ins ute
The report said the entire section was misleading. “Scientists do not disagree about what is causing climate change, the vast majority (97%) of climate papers and actively publishing climatologists (again 97%) agree that human activity is responsible,” the report said.
The NCSE reviewers also found disinformation on climate change in the proposed 5th grade text books. The passage reads: “Some scientists say it is natural for Earth’s temperature to be higher for a few years. They predict we’ll have some cooler years and things will even out.”
But the centre said that was incorrect. “We are not aware of any currently publishing climatologists who are predicting a cooling trend where ‘things will even out.’”
The reviewers said the proposed 6th and 8th grade texts also contained false statements on the causes for the thinning of the ozone layer.
http://www.theguardian.com/environme...climate-change
==============================
Ties to the Koch Brothers
The Heartland Ins ute is connected to the Koch brothers and their network of right-wing donors. In the past, the Ins ute has accepted $40,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Foundation and $62,578 from the Charles G. Koch Foundation. Both organizations are members of the Koch Family Foundations.[2]
Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
The Heartland Ins ute is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as of 2010-2011.[3] It is a member of ALEC's Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force,[4] Education Task Force,[5] Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task ForceFinancial Services Subcommittee[6] and Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force.[7] James Taylor, managing editor of the Heartland publication Environment & Climate News, spoke at the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force meeting at the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting.[7]Heartland was also an Exhibitor at ALEC's 2011 Annual Meeting.[8]
The Heartland Ins ute has also functioned as a publisher and promoter of ALEC's model legislation.[9] At the Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force meeting of ALEC's 2010 annual meeting, Alan Smith “The Hurricane Mitigation Promotion Act” and “A Resolution Concerning Tax Treatment of Affiliated Reinsurance.”[10] Marc Oestreich, who represents Heartland on the Education Task Force, has also sponsored model legislation. Oestreich sponsored the "Parent Trigger Act," which he presented at the 2010 States and Nation Policy Summit,[11] and the "Taxpayers’ Savings Grants Act," which he presented to the K–12 Education Reform Subcommittee during ALEC’s 38th Annual Meeting.[12]
Heartland Partners With ALEC to Roll Back Renewable Energy Sources
As a part of its 2013 agenda, ALEC partnered with the Heartland Ins ute to roll back the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), state-level legislation that requires utility companies to produce a certain amount of their total energy from renewable sources.[13]
The Ins ute brought a model bill, dubbed the Electricity Freedom Act, to ALEC's attention in May 2012. While ALEC publicly expressed its high hopes for the legislation, the bill had little success in state houses during the 2013 legislative session, failing to pass every legislature in which it was introduced.[14]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...land_Ins ute
TX is really a ed up state, BigCarbon and Christian Taliban leading the ing.
New U.S. history curriculum sparks education battle of 2014
To improve the Advanced Placement class for U.S. history, some of the best and brightest history scholars in the country worked for six years on a new curriculum.
The idea was to replace traditional memorization with more emphasis on critical thinking and some key periods in American history, such as the 1980s.
It all seemed innocuous enough. Maybe even a tad dry.
Then it exploded.
Just weeks before the school year began, the change sparked a political feud over how children should be taught about American history — and whose version.
From the tea party to talk radio, conservatives have taken aim at the new curriculum, describing it as liberally biased and anti-American.
In August, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution condemning the course, decrying it as a "radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation's history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects."
(
The resolution urged Congress to withhold any federal funding to the College Board, a private company that designed the curriculum, until the course is rewritten. The resolution called for a congressional investigation and at least a one-year delay in implementing the course while a committee of lawmakers, educators and parents come up with a new version that tells "the true history" of the country.
Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian women's activist group that claims more than 600,000 members, has told followers to pe ion local and state school boards to delay the implementation of the new course and be ready to pull their children out of Advanced Placement classes unless revisions are made.
Two weeks ago, the Texas Education Agency overwhelmingly approved a preliminary proposal to favor state-sanctioned educational materials in the classrooms over those provided by the College Board or other outside educational groups. STATES' RIGHTS!
"No one is against AP classes," said Ken Mercer, a board member from San Antonio who was behind the proposal. But the tea party Republican said he was deeply concerned about what he called the "liberal bias" of the Advanced Placement materials.
"I've had kids tell me when they get to college, their U.S. History 101 class is really I hate America 101," Mercer said.
The fight over the AP curriculum really took hold in Colorado.
Since Sept. 22, thousands of Jefferson County high school students have walked out of classes in a protest against a conservative school board member's plan to scrutinize the AP history curriculum after she also found it too negative in its depiction of America.
On Tuesday, students at a middle school in the same sprawling suburban Denver district also walked out. On Monday, two high schools had to close because of teacher sickouts. Earlier, two others were forced to close.
Julie Williams, elected last year to the Jeffco Public Schools board as part of
a conservative slate now in the majority, asked that teachers instead use a curriculum that promotes a respect for authority, patriotism and "essentials and benefits of the free-enterprise system."
She said teachers should avoid materials that "encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard the law."
Williams and other conservatives say the new framework leaves out important positive figures and events in American history by design to tilt the instruction. They complain there are only passing references to the Founding Fathers, to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, and to important military battles won by the United States.
Williams has acknowledge that she only skimmed the framework and did not really know what was in the choice of reading materials vetted by the College Board.
The vitriol against the test has taken the College Board aback. "The curriculum framework that follows is just that — frameworks for conveying the content and skills typically required for college credit and placement," the group said in a statement.
"The frameworks do not specify the detailed content a teacher will choose to teach," the statement said.
The College Board added that no historical figures or events had been omitted that were present in previous years.
The board has released a sample test, which is given at the end of the class to determine whether a student receives college credit. The test includes a section on interpreting do ents and charts, multiple-choice questions and essays.
Here are a few sample questions.
"Briefly explain ONE example of how contact between Native American and Europeans brought changes to Native American societies in the period 1492 to 1700."
An essay question:
"Analyze major changes and continuities in the social and economic experiences of African Americans who migrated from the rural South to urban areas in the North in the period 1910-1920."
Another:
"Some historians have argued that the American Revolution was not revolutionary in nature. Support, modify or refute this interpretation."
The leadership of the National Education Assn. has been closely watching the controversy.
"There are political overtones all over this. It certainly does appear that this is not isolated. What I don't know is who is writing the script," NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia said.
In Tennessee, Hal Rounds, a tea party candidate who recently lost his Republican primary challenge for the state's House of Representatives, agrees that this fight is political, but he blames the other side.
"I have become real concerned about the way history is being taught. Many people in this country's subcultures, and I call intellectual academics a subculture, think that it's not right for America to be on top of the world. So they are teaching the bad things in history and leaving the good things out,"
That notion baffles history teachers who are by turns insulted and enraged.
Stephanie Rossi, a 35-year teacher who has taught AP U.S. history at Wheat Ridge High School in Jefferson County for more than a decade, is stunned by "the assumption that teachers of U.S. history are leading kids astray, teaching them to be un-American and we're not honoring the history of this country."
She said critics did not understand the new curriculum. Most students come to the accelerated class already understanding well-known historical characters and events.
Her job, she said, is to challenge them to dig deeper into the role of religion, geography and ideology surrounding history and adding other voices or perspectives that might not be as familiar.
"This notion that we would leave these pivotal figures in American history out is just ludicrous," said Rossi, who serves as vice president of the Jefferson County teachers union.
"I don't think of history as positive or negative. I think of it as a story. And within that story there are successes and failures, tragedies and moments of great brilliance," she said. "I feel very strongly that I have to let my students come to their own understanding, their own conclusions."
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-colorado-schools-fight-20141001-story.html#page=1
typical Repug/VRWC/tea bagger "history":
The slaves were happy on the plantations (because slavery is approved in the Bible, and should be tried again, but only for blacks)
The Civil War was not fought over slavery.
USA won the Viet Nam war, NEVER lost a battle.
^Why do you whine about everything, tbh? That's not how grown men conduct themselves...you should be setting a better example for your children.
I dont' mind the guy having the right to believe whatever he wants, but if he is drawing a government paycheck, he shouldn't be using his time to push any one religion.Georgia teacher burns through sick days to protest criticism of classroom Bible-thumping
A history teacher in Cherokee County, Georgia has decided to take a week of sick days to protest those who criticize him for “bringing God into the classroom,” 11Alive reports.
Sequoyah High School teacher John Osborne said that he left because he didn’t feel the administration supported him. “I do have the right to fight for what I believe in and talk about Jesus in the classroom,” he told 11Alive, and claimed that he had been talking about Christ in the classroom “for years.”
But when a student complained that Osborne had told a class that pot smokers were going to , the administration brought Osborne in discuss the matter. He claimed that he never said such a thing, but admitted to regularly discussing Jesus Christ in his history classes.
“As I have grown in Christ,” he said, “it’s grown stronger in the classroom.”
When asked whether he would return after he used up his sick days, Osborne said, “I don’t know — only God knows — and I will pray about it.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/1...e+Raw+Story%29
If these GA Taleban had peanuts for brains, it would be a huge leap up in intelligence.
Ben Carson: AP History will make students join ISIS
"There's only two paragraphs in there about George Washington ... little or nothing about Martin Luther King, a whole section on slavery and how evil we are, a whole section on Japanese internment camps and how we slaughtered millions of Japanese with our bombs," Carson said at the event.
He continued, "I think most people when they finish that course, they'd be ready to go sign up for ISIS ... We have got to stop this silliness crucifying ourselves."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/1...ents-join-ISIS
all y'all right-wingers got some real intellignet NEUROSURGEONS on your team
this one one black neurosurgeon that should operate on Wild Cobra
5 Scary Ways the Right-Wing Is Trying to Subvert How Kids Are Taught US History
Revising AP U.S. History To Make It More Nationalistic: Over the past year, conservatives nationwide have complained that AP U.S. history courses are too left-wing, focusing too much on gross injustices like slavery and Jim Crow. This campaign has born fruit, with new AP standards being released that now include a section on “American exceptionalism” – the greatness of the American experiment, essentially – and a more “neutral” tone in areas of history critics felt were too “anti-American."
Trying To Ban AP U.S. History Altogether: The successful campaign to make national history standards more nationalistic was started by GOP lawmakers all over the country who are simply trying to ban the courses from high school altogether. This effort was spearheaded in Oklahoma, and became a cause celebre for Republican lawmakers all over the country.
Controlling the History Textbook Market: One of the nation's largest textbook markets is in Texas, which is such a large state that when changes are made to textbooks there, they tend to impact what's published and sold in other states. There are battles on almost an annual basis to revise these textbooks to be more conservative, with extreme religious advocates pushing for designating America as a “Christian nation.”
Koch-Approved Education: In North Carolina, a Koch-backed group isdeveloping a curriculum for K-12 students, even using grant money from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, meaning that a politicized right-wing organization is essentially being paid by taxpayers to help indoctrinate kids.
Eliminating Courses That Teach Critical Thinking: In Arizona, the right-wing war on education took the form of an outright ban on ethnic studies courses in public schools. Opponents of the ban are currently fighting it in federal court.
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-an...ter1040341&t=9
Texas mom calls out publisher after noticing high school son’s text book glossed over slavery
A Texas mother took to YouTube to call out the publishers of her son’s geography text book for hinting that Africans first came to the United States as immigrants rather than slaves, ABC13 reports.Roni Dean-Burren was taken aback when she noticed her 9th grade son’s textbook, “World Geography,” addressed the forced displacement of Africans to the Americas to work as slaves in an unusual way. The subject is addressed under a section of the book, published by McGraw-Hill, called “Patterns of immigration.”
On the section’s le page, there is a map that describes Africans being brought to the United States as “workers.”
“The Atlantic slave trade between the 1500s and the 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations,” Dean-Burren read from the text. “Immigrants — yeah that word matters.”
She then points out a section that discusses English and Europeans coming to the U.S., many as indentured servants,
but then notes that “there is no mention of Africans working as slaves or being slaves. It just says we were workers.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/texa...e+Raw+Story%29
Coddling of the American Mind?
How about Dumbing Down of American Kids?
Texas: We don't need academics to fact-check our textbooks
The Texas Board of Education rejected a measure Wednesday that would require university experts to fact-check the state’s textbooks in public schools.
The board rejected the measure 8-7, reaffirming the current fact-checking system that relies on citizen review panels made up of parents, teachers, and other members of the general public.
The measure was likely proposed in response to a complaint last month, when a Houston mother found her child’s newly approved geography textbook referred to African slaves shipped to plantations in the United States between the 1500s and 1800s as “workers.”
Instead of requesting academic consultation, the board voted unanimously to require that review panels be made up of “at least a majority” of people with “sufficient content expertise and experience,” at the discretion of the Texas education commissioner.
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-dont-aca...135530956.html
slaves were "workers" was no mistake. It's part of the slave states' strategy, including ST racists, to deny that the Civil War was over slavery, and that the "workers" were actually content to be owned and treated nicely.
We Don't Need No Steenkin Pointy-Headed, Educated Fact Checkers.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-19-2015 at 04:58 PM.
Kind of funny how you yourself glossed over the genocide of American slavery by comparing NCAA athletics to it.
you're one stupid who refuses, maybe is incapable, of undertanding my ECONOMIC-only comparison of modern blacks exploited for free so NCAA/colleges could pocket $Bs. with blacks as cotton-pickin capital.
So you acknowledge NCAA athletics are nothing like American slavery?
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