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So, my kid brother is 10. Goes to Central Park Elementary School (a public school, the same one I attended when I was younger) and takes a social studies class. Five Quick Questions for the boy:

Who was Thomas Jefferson? "The guy who wrote the Constitution".

Who was Robert Lee? "A Civil-War general".

What did Thomas Edison invent? "The lightbulb".

Who was Crispus Attucks? "Don't know".

Who was Paul Revere? "The guy who went around on a horse telling people that the Red-Coats were comming".

Not too shabby for a 4th grader. If he's to be used as the litmus-test, then the author of this article is being just a bit too alarmist. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have a hard time taking any writer who believes that John Ford films have a place in a history class seriously.

So far as I can tell they haven't been sending him home with Mao's "Little Red Book", and while some of the more horrific parts of history (such as the Holocaust or 1970's Cambodia) are glossed over, the text that he uses seems a balanced and fair summary of American history. The only downside seems to be that it's from 1993.

Clinton....shudder.

if they even teach history in that school, then that's good. Normally when they teach it they do so in an incompetent manner that turns the kids off. Also, there is information I've read that indicates throughout most public schools history is not really taught anywhere near as well as it was taught decades ago. The children really are growing up ignorant.

They are instead being taught what the author said that American history shows a bad people who did bad things. They are being divided by ethnic group and taught alienation rather than binded together as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and MLK wanted them to be. The people in charge of our schools are not dealing with our society in good faith. They should be replaced. If the parents are allowed a choice as to what schools their kids go to, then they will be replaced.

The author said that the John Ford films helped to bind the nation together. He viewed them outside of school, he was not advocating that they be a part of school.