Free Republic

Lawmakers in the Illinois state House of Representatives voted Wednesday to approve a plan that includes historical figures in the LGBT civil rights movement in K-12 textbooks, NPR reported. The measure, which now heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker's (D) desk for a signature, requires schools to include "the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this State" in official textbooks. Supporters of the rule say the measure is intended to reduce anti-LGBT bullying in schools by teaching students about the historical place of LGBT figures in American society.

Three academics spent more than a year submitting absurd “hoax” papers to the preeminent journals focusing on race, gender, sexuality and other politically fraught disciplines that fall into what the perpetrators of the scheme call “grievance studies.” The self-identified “left-leaning liberal” academics, told the Wall Street Journal they undertook the project out of concern “that certain aspects of knowledge production in the United States have been corrupted” by a hesitance among academics to question research based on privilege and identity for fear of accusations of bigotry. Since August, 2017 the academics — James Lindsay, a math doctorate, Peter Boghossian, an...

You have GOT to read this, from Quillette! It starts with this editor’s note: Editor’s note: For the past year scholars James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian have sent fake papers to various academic journals which they describe as specialising in activism or “grievance studies.” Their stated mission has been to expose how easy it is to get “absurdities and morally fashionable political ideas published as legitimate academic research.” To date, their project has been successful: seven papers have passed through peer review and have been published, including a 3000 word excerpt of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, rewritten in...

If you rewrote a chapter from Hitler’s Mein Kampf using current feminist jargon and submitted it to a respected feminist journal, would they agree to publish it? How about a paper suggesting dog parks are rampant sites for canine rape culture? Or one that explores the threat of “metasexual violence” from (private) masturbation? You can probably guess the answer but read on for the details. A trio of academics decided to explore the current state of peer-reviewed publishing in the humanities by writing bogus papers to see if there were any limits to what was acceptable. Helen Pluckrose, James A....

Parents in a Sacramento, California suburban school district were shocked this week to discover that Lt. Gov Gavin Newsom, the Democratic Party candidate for governor in November, is portrayed in a first-grade textbook as a “champion for people’s rights.” The textbook celebrates Newsom alongside such icons as President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — apparently for his decision, as mayor of San Francisco, to recognize gay marriages in 2004.

A new state recommended social studies and history curriculum is being introduced in public schools around California that blatantly promotes a bias perspective on the policy achievements of governor candidate Gavin Newsom. Dubbing him “Champion for People’s Rights,” the first grade textbook teaches kids about “respecting the rights” of others by pointing to Newsom’s advocacy for same-sex marriage, while mayor of San Francisco. The text doesn’t even try to be objective and fails to mention that marriages for same-sex couples were not an established right at the time, but a brand new concept and only legal in a select number...

The Texas State Board of Education appears to have decided the heroism of the Alamo is worth teaching to students after all. State politicians erupted in protest this month after a volunteer team of educators, looking for ways to “streamline” the state’s social studies curriculum, recommended scrubbing references to “all the heroic defenders” at the Alamo from classroom teaching plans. Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Republicans, accused the panel of allowing the dictates of political correctness to run wild and demanded that Texans call the board to complain. Rep. Ted Poe showed up personally before the...

"Education is a weapon the effect of which is determined by the hands which wield it, by who is to be struck down." -- Stalin, interview with H.G. Wells Beginning in early K-12 and continuing to the highest levels of university education, Leftist indoctrination is the gravest dilemma that afflicts education in North America, rendering it perhaps the most powerful instrument of anti-Western bias and socialist propaganda of the modern era. Here my concern is with the abandonment of genuine scholarship, fact-based historical research, familiarity with the “Great Books” and the development of critical thinking habits, particularly in the humanities...

A panel advising the State Board of Education on what seventh-graders should learn in their social studies courses has urged deleting the label "heroic" from a curriculum standard about the Alamo's defenders.---snip---The panel said "heroic" was a "value-charged word."---snip---Current seventh-grade social studies curriculum standards include the "siege of the Alamo and all of the heroic defenders who gave their lives there." The advisory committee recommended cutting the phrase "and all of the heroic defenders who gave their lives there."---snip---Debbie Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, said the recommendation was made in response to complaints that curriculum standards are too...

California has become the first state to approve LGBT-inclusive history textbooks for use in primary schools, the Advocate reports. The California State Board of Education on Thursday approved 10 textbooks for kindergarten through eighth-grade students that include coverage of the historical contributions of LGBT people, and rejected two that failed to include such coverage.

It is sadly common for conservative presidents and political leaders to be portrayed in a less-than-flattering light in the left-leaning textbooks used in public school and college classrooms, but a new volume on American history gives a new spin on the term “rush to judgment.” Less than a year-and-a-half after taking office as America’s sitting president, Donald Trump is already being maligned in the pages of an upcoming high school history text which insinuates that he and his supporters are driven by racism and that he is mentally unfit to serve as our Commander-in-Chief. Textbooks rarely receive a high profile...

The new Advanced Placement U.S. History book is under fire across America for, among other scandals, portraying President Donald Trump's supporters as ignorant old racists. It also paints Trump as a racist and highlights his alleged “extremism,” without explaining what, exactly, the far-left author considers to be “extreme.” “Most thought that Trump was too extreme a candidate to win the nomination, but his extremism, his anti establishment rhetoric and, some said, his not-very-hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters – more voters than any other single Republican candidate,” claimed the author, without explaining how Trump could win...

Pearson spokesman, Scott Overland, told Fox News the textbook was “developed by an expert author and underwent rigorous peer review to ensure academic integrity.” He added that it was “designed to convey college-level information to high school students” and “aims to promote debate and critical thinking by presenting multiple sides” of the 2016 election..... “Most thought that Trump was too extreme a candidate to win the nomination, but his extremism, his anti-establishment rhetoric, and, some said, his not-very-hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters,” Fraser wrote. Trump voters are described as “mostly older, often rural or suburban,...

A soon-to-be-released updated edition of an Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History textbook teaches students that white Christian Americans are finding it “difficult to adjust” to becoming a minority and puts forward the perception that President Donald Trump’s election occurred because his apparent “racism connected with a significant number of primary voters.” James Fraser’s By the People: A History of the United States, 2ndEdition, is published by Pearson and has a 2019 copyright date. Alex Clark – co-host of the Indiana-based morning radio Joe and Alex Show– tweeted photos of the cover and several pages of the book that she reports...

An indictment was filed against the terrorist Yassin Abu al-Keraa, who carried out the stabbing attack at the central bus station in Jerusalem during which guard Asher Elmaliach was seriously wounded. The 24-year-old terrorist, a resident of the village of Wadi Farah near Shechem, was illegally residing in Israel using an entry permit to the seam zone, which was issued to cross the separation barrier for work purposes. According to the indictment, following the declaration by US President Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the terrorist decided to kill as many Jews as possible in Jerusalem, be...

Children in California will be learning to identify historical personages by their sexuality.The Advocate reported that the California state board of education approved “10 LGBT-inclusive history textbooks” for elementary school students in grades K-8 last week. It also rejected two textbooks on the grounds that they did not include “LGBT history.” The exclusion of LGBT history violates California’s FAIR Education Act.The FAIR Education Act, once informally called the LGBT History Bill, was written by Senator Mark Leno. FAIR stands for “Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful.” It ensures that the political, economic and social contributions of people with disabilities as well...

Gay rights groups told a California state commission Wednesday that they object to several of the textbooks that could be recommended for use in schools, saying the books don’t include enough information about the contributions of LGBT Americans. The state Department of Education is preparing to update textbook recommendations for the first time since California became the first state to require teaching about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. A coalition of LGBT rights groups said the books should not merely include a token reference to San Francisco civil rights icon Harvey Milk but integrate the contributions...

Keith Flaugh is a retired IBM executive living in Naples, Fla., and a man with a mission. He describes it as "getting the school boards to recognize ... the garbage that's in our textbooks." Flaugh helped found Florida Citizens' Alliance, a conservative group that fought unsuccessfully to stop Florida from signing on to Common Core educational standards. More recently, the group has turned its attention to the books being used in Florida's schools. A new state law, developed and pushed through by Flaugh's group, allows parents, and any residents, to challenge the use of textbooks and instructional materials they find...

After the United Nations was exposed last year indoctrinating vulnerable Arab children at UN schools to wage jihad on Jews, the scandal-plagued global body is now meddling in the selection of textbooks for American students. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.Of course, in America, school textbook selection has traditionally been a responsibility of individual teachers, schools, or perhaps a local school district elected and controlled by the community. Yet as the UN increasingly seeks more control and influence across every area of life, education and the minds of children are just the latest target — albeit an...

As America looks back on the September 11 terrorist attack that changed the nation, the direction of education in the country seems on track to ensure that U.S. students either forget that day entirely or view it as a result of America’s own failure to be open and accepting of other cultures. Signs of the promotion of a “borderless” country that fosters unfettered multiculturalism could be seen decades ago in progressive school textbooks read daily by American students. “Culture war” commentator Stanley Kurtz tells Breitbart News that the situation is likely only to grow worse with the left-leaning Advanced Placement...