A U.N. curriculum in local schools?

OC Register ^ | 12/19/04 | Steve Greenhut

[NormsRevenge]

If you have a serious discussion with almost any public school teacher, principal, superintendent or trustee, you are likely to hear about the importance of local control and of protecting school curricula from outsiders who want to promote their particular set of values.

Yet a new curriculum gaining steam nationwide, known as the International Baccalaureate program, confirms what critics of public schools have long suspected: a) educators embrace local control only when it suits them; b) they are more than willing to promote particular values, provided they are politically correct values.

IB is an international K-12 curriculum designed to promote world peace, multicultural understanding, environmental sensitivity, human rights and democracy. It sounds like inoffensive pabulum, but such lofty goals conceal troubling agendas.

Instead of local control, the curriculum actually is devised by bureaucrats in Geneva, Switzerland, and Cardiff, Wales.

Instead of guarding against outside agendas, school officials are inviting into their K-12 school systems a curriculum that, by its own admission, is not about academics but about changing worldviews and molding the minds of impressionable pupils.

There is much debate about IB, but a few things are unquestionably true.

IB was originally funded and sponsored in part by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which was once so corrupt and anti-American in its advocacy that the United States withdrew its membership in 1984. Reportedly, UNESCO has improved itself, which has prompted renewed support by the Bush administration, but UNESCO's fundamental philosophy has never changed.

[zzen01]

CA Again!

[MisterRepublican]

Coming to a government "school"(indoctrination center) near you.

[26lemoncharlie]

Yes and you want to see what they have planned for little Johnny and little Sally, read this:

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=954

[Carry_Okie]

IB was originally the World Core Curriculum designed by for the UN by Luciferian Theosophist, Robert Muller.

[Piquaboy]

It is no wonder that the kids are getting more stupid every day with the help of the UN and the NEA they cannot expect any better.

[rpgdfmx]

WHAT???!!!

The IB is for students transferring from country to country, guaranteeing that say, a Bolivian school graduate can transfer to a university in Britain. The U.N. has nothing to do with this. Its a private group in Switzerland, comparable to the ETS (which writes the SAT exams) in the U.S.

[AVNevis]

I have a friend in an IB program. I'll have to ask her about this.

[marsh_of_mists]

I don't know. My high school used this curricula starting in my sophomore year. I never noticed anything unusually wacky. Nothing biased in my history classes. Nothing biased in my English classes-we read Dante, Shakespeare, and Hawthorne. We had "comprehensive" sex ed, but it wasn't any crazier than a lot of the stuff you see in regular public schools.

[Pio]

"which has prompted renewed support by the Bush administration"

Remind me why I voted for Bush. He's spending his political capital to advance liberalism.

[383rr]

Oh, where art thou, sons of liberty...

[Slyfox]

My son attended a high school where they had the IB program. It seemed to me as if the kids taking IB were even more advanced than those taking advanced classes. The best I can understand is that going through the classes meant you could opt out of certain classes in college.

The Robert Muller connection has me concerned though. He wrote a book called "First Lady of the World", and happens to be a huge fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If you've got a school where the kids get a thorough grounding in Western Civilization and Latin, you will get a terrifically educated kid. One who can think in a truly independent manner.

[marsh2]

environmental sensitivity, human rights and democracy.

This means that it is presented within a socialistic framework. "Democracy" means the community or majority always over-rules individual rights. There is generally a message of "social justice" with the accompanying guilt and justification for re-allocation of resources from the wealthy to the poor and the West to the Third World.

"Human rights" are the equivalent of "civil rights." There is no understanding of the rights of conscience, the right to one's own body and its labor and the individual rights with which man has been endowed by his Creator. "Human rights" are those privileges recognized by civil society, such as education, health care, etc. This confuses the student so he/she does not learn about the difference.

"Environmental sensitivity" goes hand in hand with the doctrine of social "democracy" and "social justice." It is a nice little package or hook by which to deliver the socialist agenda.

[StayAt HomeMother]

If you are deciding between IB and AP, look at the colleges your children might go to and compare credit policies. Note that IB has "Standard Level" (SL) and "High Level" (HL) courses (roughly comparable to British A levels and O levels). Many colleges do not give credit for ANY IB courses, and very few American colleges award college credit for SL courses.

Note also that IB Diploma Candidates may take no more that four HL courses, but students may take as many AP courses as they want.

As for curriculum, for social studies do you want your child to study AP US History and AP US and Comparative Government, or IB "History of the Americas" (lots of emphasis on Latin and South America) and IB "Topics of the Twentieth Century?" And if your child is strong in math and science, be sure to see if your school offers High Level courses in math, biology, chemistry, and physics.

If your child will attend high school in Europe for at least a couple years, or is planning to attend high school in Europe, then IB may be the way to go.