Posted on 02/21/2008 6:05:37 PM PST by metmom
YORBA LINDA, Calif. — When Patricia Cosby's 12-year-old daughter brought home the novel "Prep" from school, she was horrified to find out what her daughter was reading.
"It was really like reading something that was pornographic," Cosby said.
Her daughter found the book -- which is part of an accelerated reading program -- in the Heritage Oak School library in Yorba Linda, Calif.
"When the book first came home I couldn't sleep the first night," Patricia Cosby said. "I just kept waking up and I just had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
ping
I was going to bring this to your attention, but you’re the one who found it.
It’s pretty bad that stuff like this is out there.
The hypocrisy of the left is so unbelievable. On one hand, they’re encouraging kids in promiscuity through stuff like this, on the other they’re trying to prevent teen pregnancy and sexual abuse by reporting any kind of *inappropriate* behavior.
They’re encouraging the very behavior they condemn when the kids act on it.
Renaissance - Fruit Loops?
Wow.
If I plant my feet under the State’s table, I have forfeited my right to complain about the menu. What it feeds me, I must swallow! He who would sup with the devil must needs use a long spoon. Best choice, of course, is home cooking.
How progressive. The educrats who approve this stuff have the same MO as other predators/subversives (e.g. Chicoms, Islamics, politicians). Probe the defenses, test the response, take advantage of any weakness, prepare the plausible deniability excuse if caught. Works well in tandem with projection. Three steps forward, one back. Repeat and proceed predictably forward.
You are right, most (if not all) liberals are pedophiles, sexual perverts, or homosexuals. That is why our children Must be Protected from their influence.
It’s our taxes.
With school programs like this, why are we so shocked when teachers have sex with their students?
Parents who love their children need to pull them out of the government schools TODAY.
Get your kids out of public school.
Why anyone would let these pinheads anywhere near their kids is beyond me. If you care about your kids’ education, you have to take control of it. You can’t leave it to the so-called professionals; their agenda is not yours.
Why didn’t the mother forbid her child to read the book? There are many books on reading lists... tell the child to pick another book.
Having this type material on a reading list for 12 year olds is ridiculous, but the parent still has the last say over what the child is allowed to read.
Parents have been brainwashed into being powerless.
Somehow they have the mentality the schools can tell them what to do in raising their own kids.
If the parents object, they’re told they’re wrong and people believe the *educated elite*.
Poor Richard Nixon must be turning in his grave!
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson: Bill for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers 2:545 http://www.religioustolerance.org/virg_bil.htmBut what is even more disturbing with this situation is the usurping of parental authority by the public schools. In fact, this situation arguably reflects Mark 7:1-23, particularly verses 9-13, which shows that Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees for nullifying the 5th Commandment, to honor your parents.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
Evil, pure evil!
We never got the benefit of this fine book. Our ninth grade reading list was limited to lesser classics like "Huckleberry Finn", "The Jungle" and "Red Badge of Courage."
This is a misinterpretation of the reading list.
The website produces online tests for kids to take on a book.
The reading level is based on how difficult the words are to read and how many words are in a book.
Unfortunately, cuss words and words about sex are pretty easy to read, so that is why the reading level is what it is.
It’s simple, inappropriate material.
I don’t recall exactly what we read in what grade, but I do remember some of those books.
Along with other books that are currently on the *banned books* list, like *To Kill a Mockingbird*. Goodness knows, we can’t have them reading a book that uses the common vernacular of that day- that N-word. That might corrupt their innocent little minds.
But porn is OK. Yeah.
Interesting to apply the Bible to this situation. Recently the Holy Father also emphasized that parents have a right to educate their children and a State cannot usurp that right.
I haven’t read that in years.
Simple solution. Remove Renaissance. They don’t want
to change their books, or the age recommendation. Good.
Goodbye.
Not to mention they want humans to 'follow their nature' with sex, but not with eating meat. Typical.
No, its the cult of Margaret Mead. They are still clinging to the idea that the Polynesian natives are the most peaceful people in the world because they are all getting it on from the time they hit puberty until they die.
Funny thing is, Mead’s work is one of the most heavily discredited cultural anthropology “studies” out there. It was all BS. From a historical standpoint, the Polynesians fought tribal wars that would put most cultures to shame, and they are not a particularly promiscuous people - monagamy, with the typical marriage beginning in the late teen years.
But, it fits the lib agenda of a utopia where everyone sings a few verses of Kumbaya, drinks their banana - brocoli shake and screws anything that moves. I was astonished when reading a Carl SSagan book a few years ago, and he was citing the long discedited work of Mead in arguing that society needs to actually encourage sexual activity among the young. Sloppy science and borderline perversity.
Parents who love their children need to pull them out of the government schools TODAY.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Uh oh! Some government school defender is sure to feel **personally** insulted.
I read the book. What was interesting was that the author (who went to boarding school herself) presented boarding school experience as a formulaic rich kids have it better there than the kids on scholarship scenario. It was very difficult to actually “like” the main character who seemed to be based on the author. I understand the author’s school and boarding schools have had quite the problem trying to deal with this piece of fiction, and are not happy with it at all.
Being a good parent of a child institutionalized in a government schools is a LOT more work that homeschooling.
Yes, of course you are correct. The parent still has the last word, but,,,in terms of time, it takes a lot more time for a parent of a government schooled child to read everything that comes home, to request syllabuses, read and critique textbooks, and deprogram.
The book “Prep” is likely only one of many, many examples of trash that the parent must be on the look out.
The thing that is more disturbing than our public school systems, is the lack of public (parental) outrage about them.
We get the government we deserve because we allow the educations that have created it...
“The thing that is more disturbing than our public school systems, is the lack of public (parental) outrage about them.”
It reminds me of frogs in slowly boiling water. It seems to many would rather let their kids boil, instead of jumping out of the sewer that is the government forced indoctrination centers.
I am very outraged about the book being at a school library, but it isn’t Renaissance that’s the problem this time.
The problem is that a 12 year old was allowed to check out this book at a school library.
Renaissance Learning is just a company that provides quizzes for all sorts of books, even college level books.
The grade level is based on how hard it is to read, not on an appropriateness level.
It is a reading level. Unfortunately, cuss words and sexual content is easy to read. That’s why this book is a 6th grade reading level.
Now, the fact that a child checked the book out of a school library bugs me.
If the school used this book as part of a curriculum, it would bug me.
However, the fact that it is a 6th grade reading level according to Renaissance Learning doesn’t bug me.
When I was in ninth grade we read “ragtime” which had a scene where a little boy was masturbating in a closet while spying on two lesbians making out (IIRC). We all turned out ok, but I can still tell you what page the good part was on :-)
We are currently looking at public/private high schools for my 8th grader.
He is into drama, so I thought it would be a good idea to go to our local high school’s drama production.
I read an advertisement for it in the local paper, and it said it was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but it was tamed down to a PG-13 level.
I never saw the movie or read the book, so I just knew it was about a mental institution.
Well, in the first 15 minutes they said every cuss word except the F-word, and they had all sorts of sexual themes.
My son and I left at intermission, and my husband said I should have left earlier.
I then e-mailed the principal and the drama teacher about the play, and I told them both that my son and I were uncomfortable with the material.
I then asked if there was a way for my son to have different curriculum if I objected to something taught in class. The drama teacher did say that there was a touring group that did plays for elementary school children that was typically G-rated plays. However, I also asked the principal about literature and the principal said the curriculum was set by the school district.
I went to the school district website and looked at their reading lists for high school students (Malcolm X, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Always Running). There’s also a bunch of feminist type books. They do have some classics, but they throw in things that I don’t want my kids reading. I’m in California, so everything is very liberal out here.
My son has an interview at a private Christian school next week. If he gets in, then we have to decide if we want to spend 13K a year. It’s a lot of money, but I think we’ll end up sending him there.
I’ll take your word for it.
However, you illustrate an important point. That sort of stuff gets burned into the memory in a way nothing else can. It’s with you forever. No one needs that kind of filth bumping around their brain. There’s plenty of stuff out there to fill one’s mind with that has a lot more redeeming value.
The author is just trying to get a cheap thrill, knowing impressionable kids are going to read this kind of stuff, and they have to know that they will be undermining parental authority, and contributing to the corruption of today’s youth.
There’s so little value in something like that that those can be the only reasons.
I’d just move...... :)
Not an option at this point, but my husband does make enough to cover the cost of the school. He wouldn’t make as much in other parts of the country, so this is just part of the cost of living here.
I also figure most public schools are fairly bad these days, especially the high schools. I grew up in Texas, and I don’t think I’d want my kids going to my old public school.
So is this like, “I Am Charlotte Simmons” for the middle and high school crowds?
“The author is just trying to get a cheap thrill, knowing impressionable kids are going to read this kind of stuff, and they have to know that they will be undermining parental authority, and contributing to the corruption of today’s youth.”
It’s not just the schools. Idaho law allows doctors to prescribe birth control pills for minor children, then conspire with the children to conceal this from the parents.
And nobody — not even Idaho Freepers — seems to give a flying jump at a rolling doughnut.
I’ve heard not one single good reason in the last ten years to leave a child in a government run school of any kind. Not one!
I just google the book and it has great reviews for a sexy raw look at class,race and gender issue of a female adolescent. Good Grief. Propaganda for the children. What happened to Little Women.
“Why didn’t the mother forbid her child to read the book?”
I am all for parental responsibility, but expecting a parent to be familiar with all 200 books on a given book list is a bit much. There should be some element of trust a parent can have in a school - they should be able to assume the school will not give the kids porn to read.
Their calloused response is typical.
Homeschooling is the best option if you can can make it work. The problem is that not everyone can afford it. My cousin and his wife seriously looked into homeschooling. However, the only way that they could do it was if she quit her job. Without her income, he would have to start taking a ton of overtime work in order to get by. Since he'd be working all the time, he'd hardly ever be home to spend any time with the kids. In the end, they decided that it was better for the kids that to have a dad that is available than to homeschool them
And trust me, their decision wasn't about making enough money to satisfy worldly desires. They weren't thinking, "If we homeschool we won't be able to afford that new plasma TV." They were thinking about how best to feed and house their kids, while simultaneously being able to actually spend time with them.
Bump
Ping
Great Jefferson quote and very useful.
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