'FOX News Reporting: Do You Know What Textbooks Your Children Are Really Reading?'

Host Tucker Carlson, asked experts, teachers, publishers and parents the same question: "Do you know what is inside your children's textbooks?" From kindergarten through college, we found staggering errors and omissions which may be pushing agendas, hidden and otherwise.

We spoke to the author of "The Language Police," education historian Diane Ravitch, who said textbook publishers censor images or words they deem to be controversial in children’s textbooks. She told us that publishers pander to special interest groups, and assemble bias and sensitivity review committees. These committees decide what words to ban or redefine, and even what images are deemed offensive.

And we examined some college textbooks both in print and in digital forms. We found a glaring mistake in an expensive history book written by Alan Brinkley, Provost at New York’s Columbia University.

And in Fairfax County Virginia, questions remain about what textbooks are used in the private Islamic Saudi Academy. The ISA teaches about 1000 students each year pre-K — 12. Questions have been raised about its textbooks at least since 2006.

This summer, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, ISA’s 1999 valedictorian, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a 2002 Al Qaeda plot to assassinate President George W. Bush.

The ISA is wholly owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and teaches students from textbooks, which according to a report by a Saudi scholar interviewed by FOX News, continues to “propagate an ideology of hate to the unbeliever...

We tracked down two American college professors who were paid by the ISA to review these textbooks. They signed a letter obtained by FOX News that the ISA's 2008-2009 textbooks' do not contain inflammatory material…” One of them sat down for an interview; the other refused.

Morally we are correct, but you'll not pry middle-class entitlements easily out of the hands of those recipients. They are between a rock and a hard place.
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Long established institutions can suddenly lose their legitimacy almost overnight. It all starts with an idea. Just ask Martin Luther.

Where there are vouchers, tax credits, and charters, there are LONG LONG waiting lists of children with parents desperate to get their children into these schools. These parents are highly well organized politically, and politicians will not be deaf to their pitiful pleas.

I am also encouraged that in one Los Angeles high school it was the **teachers** who voted for and did get a switch to become a Green Dot charter. Amazing! **Teachers** did this!

Of all the programs, I favor tax-credits the most. Hopefully, these programs ( vouchers, tax credits, and charters) will build an infrastructure of small schools that can later be fully privatized.

As the infrastructure grows, middle class families should be expected to take on more of the burden of paying tuition to attend. As it is now, some government schools expect parents to pay for all extra curricular costs, and some even mandate that parents pay several hundred dollars each year to rent textbooks for their children.

If parents ( in some states) are required to pay for book rental, why not bus transportation, or energy and heating/airconditioning “surcharges”, and then finally full-blown tuition?

Conservatives should also apply pressure on the government school institution from the private side.

Private conservative educational foundations could award grants to individual teachers. The teachers would open one room school houses, mini-schools, and homeschool co-ops. The foundations would certify the teacher, test the students, and certify the curriculum.

This would completely eliminate all the expense of brick and mortar. These “mini-schools” would have no more regulation or expense than the typical day care center or home-run baby sitting business.

Private conservative educational foundations should also run sports leagues, theater, dance, and arts programs. It is amazing how much “rah-rah” support sports generates for the typical government school, the rug needs to pulled from under this government monopoly.

Then there is the continued growth and **outstanding** success of homeschooling. It continues growing 7 to 15% each year. Estimates are now 3 to 5 million children are fully or partially homeschooled.

Chip, chip, chip, nibble, nibble, nibble! Even a lowly woodpecker can bring down a great big house, if he pecks away at the right spot.

That is incredibly impressive.
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Homeschoolers are doing it all the time. That is why we must consider abandoning brick and mortar, and lock step progress through the years.

Regarding getting into college:

I had to go back to work briefly in order to work the number of hours needed to maintain my professional license. So...I took my 3 homeschoolers over to the community college to have them tested. I wanted to know what grade they would be.

My kids at ages ( 13, and 12) did soooo well that the community college adviser suggested enrolling them in the college. When the youngest turned 13 she did the same.

There is perfectly wonderful and inexpensive curriculum available thanks to homeschooling. This is why I believe conservatives, if they start private educational foundations, should abandon the idea of brick and mortar schools. Why not just fund the teacher? She could run her school in her home, a day care center, as part of a dance studio, or a store front office.

Why should the zoning and health regulations for this type of “mini-school” be any more onerous than for someone running a baby sitting service in their home, or dance studio, or Sylvan tutoring center?

Sounds good to me. Wish I had alot of money to donate.
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It doesn't need to be an outright donation. You could buy an annuity. Many colleges, universities, hospitals, and churches do this now. It is like a retirement fund.

You buy the annuity in one bulk payment, or contribute monthly over many years, and when you retire the annuity pays you an agreed upon monthly allotment. This money is used to support your retirement. When you die, the capital that remains goes to the charity.

My husband and I have bought an annuity through our church. We get to live on the interest and some of the principle, and when we die our “donation” ( what remains of the capital) goes to our church. This way we can be generous to our church and still make reasonably sure that we have enough retirement income coming in monthly.

People do not need to be rich to fund private K-12 education. All that is needed is for someone with the know-how and the leardership to set it up.

I think that those who receive anything at no cost to themselves don't appreciate it's importance.
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I agree with you on this point. Eventually, if government school institution could be totally shut down, the existing private system would charge tuition.

Howerever...There is a difference from accepting a private charity ( which is what the private schools would be) and taking a tuition-free service from the government. With private schools the child would be encouraged to feel **gratitude** for another’s generous donation. In the government's tuition-free schools the child is taught that it is his **right** for the government to force money from his neighbor to pay for something his parents want for free.

Private tuition-free schools generate attitudes of gratitude.

Government tuition-free schools generate a belief in entitlement for the government to enslave other people's labor, life, and money.

The government schools are **charging** zero tuition at the door for the parent. If a system of private schools is going to compete against the government price-fixed monopoly, it will need to match the government's fee of zero.

Please do not confuse the government school's **charge** of free with what it **costs** to run the government school. It actually **costs** the taxpayer a lot to run these government schools.

Wisdom is the reward of many years of experience

Having read many of your interesting posts on homeschooling, I take what you say (about that) very seriously. I have seen that you indeed have a lot of wisdom on this subject and you make many thought-provoking comments that seem to contain a great deal of truth.

The reason I am responding so late is that your last post did have a big impact on my thinking.

While it is OK to introduce children to certain academic materials (in a playful way), if they don’t take an interest in it, it is best to wait. These young years are better spent in loosely supervised unstructured **play**.

I can see a lot of signs that my son is ready to learn to read and interested in doing so. And he was ready last year to do the math problems he will have in school this year. The thing that worries me about the public school is that he will get turned off by the institution aspect, the structure, which indeed is effected at the expense of play.

I was going to respond to various other parts of your last post, but rather than bothering you with that, I would like like to ask you just one question:

What do you think of TV?

What do you think of TV?
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Please remember that being bored is **good**! Being bored is an uncomfortable state for a child and it prompts him to play, be creative with and art projects, practice and instrument, read, build things, dig holes,..etc.

I am a health professional and until my homeschoolers were about 7, 6, and 5, I had a small office that occupied the first floor of our home.

One day when the children were about 5, 4, and 3 I was in my office with one my patients who just happened to be a Mormon missionary. My children were upstairs fighting bitterly over a video game that had been given to them by their grandfather. After I finished with my appointment I said the two young men, “Boys, could you give me a hand?”
The three of us marched upstairs. I unplugged the TV, and to the children's amazement, the two young men carried the TV up to the attic.

The plan was to leave the TV up in the attic for a month to help teach the children that there were **consequences** to making a ruckus while Mom had office hours. However, not having a TV made such a difference in the peace, tranquility, and spirituality of our home that we never hooked up the TV again. Yes, we did use it as a monitor, and during the Olympics we had a fuzzy picture with rabbit ears, but we never again had TV. My husband and I are now grandparents and we still don't have a TV, even for ourselves.

One night a week we watched a video movie that the children had to **earn** by meeting family and homeschooling goals. I did allow them to watch educational videos such as “Nova” anytime they wanted. Our evenings were spent reading with the children individually, working on art projects ( we were volunteers for the library) and playing games as a family.

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