Free Republic

Parent Larry Caldwell had an idea to bring more diversity into the education of his child and fellow students of the Roseville, Calif., Joint Union High School District. Months ago, he observed, the district's biology textbook failed to point out any of the weaknesses of the theory of evolution – teaching it instead as a matter of fact. Saying he was not interested in injecting religious views of creation into the curriculum, only providing more objectivity and balance when it comes to teaching about Charles Darwin and his theory, Caldwell added: "There's mainstream science that's been systematically censored from the...

It’s not just overreaction or Yankee imagination. Anti-Americanism is not only alive and well, it’s spoon fed in Canada. And it stems from a taxpayer paid source: the classroom. The Three 'Rs, Canada style, have been teaching school children as young as grade school an image of Americans as dishonourable, churlish and even bullying. This less than admirable image emerges in a study, presented this week to the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, hosted by the University of Manitoba. Amy von Heyking is a professor of education at the University of Alberta. A specialist in the history of...

Mexico's gift of 27,000 books misses the mark Although it's poor form to criticize a gift, it's hard not to second-guess the Mexican government's choice of presents for the people of Los Angeles County. The country's local consulate has donated some 27,000 textbooks, novels and other literature to 40 school districts throughout the county. It's a nice gesture -- a recognition that the Mexican government ought to shoulder some responsibility for the thousands of economic refugees it drives into Los Angeles every year -- but not a very practical one. Forget the 27,000 titles; what we could really use are...

Reading, Writing, and 'Politically Correct' Textbooks By David BrodyCongressional Correspondent Out of the 22 states that have a process for approval of textbooks, publishers concentrate on getting approved in the two biggest states, Texas and California. CBN.com – WASHINGTON -- When you send your children off to public school in the morning, you may think they are getting a good education. And indeed, many schools in the country have fine academic principles. But beneath the surface, there is something else going on. Political correctness has reached new heights and it is even affecting what your children are being taught in...

Recently an extremely important situation was brought to my attention and I want to enlist those of you who have influence to bring this to the attention of the greater public. A friend of mine rents rooms in his home to students of Stony Brook University. Stony Brook University is the academic home of a huge Asian population, mostly recent immigrants from China who have come to the United States for an education. Of course, there are also many American students attending classes there too. Many of these students are taking their first writing classes in English, the text of...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The Roman Catholic Church is handing out failing grades to most of the religion textbooks used to instruct the country's 680,000 Catholic high school students. A church committee that studies the material found that some of the textbooks avoid saying adultery and premarital sex are sins. Others depict the Bible as little more than a history book, the group says. That's not all: It claims one textbook explains that Jesus' miracles were the result of luck. Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans, chairman of the church's national education committee, has urged all bishops to pull any...

Where's the ACLU when you need it? For years, America's government schools have been told by the courts and the secular jihadists at the American Civil Liberties Union that any vestige of Christianity or Judaism must be eradicated. There's been a judicial fatwa against the two faiths that inspired the American political system. The courts have blessed this Taliban-like holy war against religion in the schools and the public square. The legal rationalization for this crusade has been the establishment clause of the First Amendment – a thin thread of an excuse. But now it is becoming increasingly clear that's...

Her name is Susan L. Douglass. She’s highly regarded by administrators within the American school systems. She’s Muslim. She’s anti-Jew and anti-Christian. She instructed at Islamic Saudi Academy, Alexandria, Virginia, where Wahhabism is taught. The latter’s texts are anti-Jew and anti-Christian. Jews and Christians are, in expected Muslim parlance, "infidels." Infidels are unbelievers. Muslims are true believers. Infidels, according to the Koran, are to be killed or enslaved. The Koran reads, for example: 8:12, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them. 8:17, It is not...

By Paul Sperry © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com WASHINGTON -- A top textbook consultant shaping classroom education on Islam in American public schools recently worked for a school funded and controlled by the Saudi government, which propagates a rigidly anti-Western strain of Islam, a WorldNetDaily investigation reveals. The consultant, Susan L. Douglass, has also praised Pakistan's madrassa schools as "proud symbols of learning," even after the U.S. government blamed them for fueling the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaida. Douglass, routinely described as a "scholar" or "historian," has edited manuscripts of world history textbooks used by middle and high school students across...

Your children may learn that Muslims discovered AmericaApril 16th, 2004 A Native American tribe has forced distributors of an Arab studies guide for American teachers to remove an inaccurate and absurd passage that Muslim explorers preceded Columbus to North America, and eventually became Algonquin chiefs named Abdul-Rahim and Abdallah Ibn Malik! The Middle East Policy Council, a Washington advocacy group that promotes this curriculum to school districts in 155 U.S. cities have apparently been somewhat unresponsive and dismissive of complaints. Ridiculous as this example is, it is illustrative of a far more disturbing development: the placement of propaganda in our schools by...

<p>An Indian tribe has forced distributors of an Arab studies guide for U.S. teachers to remove an inaccurate passage that says Muslim explorers preceded Christopher Columbus to North America and became Algonquin chiefs.</p> <p>Peter DiGangi, director of Canada's Algonquin Nation Secretariat in Quebec, called claims in the book, the "Arab World Studies Notebook," "preposterous" and "outlandish," saying nothing in the tribe's written or oral history support them.</p>

<p>The latest editions of the most widely used social studies textbooks across the country are full of errors and politically correct bias, reviews show.</p> <p>Publisher McDougal Littell's high school "World History: Patterns of Interaction" blames explorer Christopher Columbus for "the beginnings of an era of widespread cruelty and bloodshed" in the Americas, but fails to mention Aztec, Mayan and Toltec Indian practices of forced labor and cutting out hearts of opponents while they were still alive.</p>

<p>Social studies textbooks used in elementary and secondary schools are mostly a disgrace that, in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism, fail to give students an honest account of American history, say academic historians and education advocates.</p> <p>"Secondary and college students, and indeed most of the rest of us, have only a feeble grasp of politics and a vague awareness of history, especially the political history of the United States and the world," says Paul Gagnon, emeritus professor of history at the University of Massachusetts.</p>

Militant Islamists in the United States and their allies have set their sights on our American children. They seek to provide an education similar to that taught in the controlled regimes of the Arab world. So far, American textbook suppliers are more than willing to accommodate them. It is well known that the Palestine Authority, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world use propaganda in their schools to support Islamic hegemony and stir up sentiment against Israel and the West. Students in the Middle East are taught to distrust Christians and Jews and are then taught to apply...

If high-school students seem bored by history, consider what they get to read. A panel of scholars perused the pages of this country's history textbooks and found weighty volumes filled with shallow writing masked by colorful illustrations, bright graphics and copious quantities of white space. "These books include so much about so many topics and people that it is nearly impossible for teachers or students to know what information or themes are of greatest importance. All resort to an approach that may be described as 'if this is Tuesday, we must be studying the Hittites.'" reports the 10-member panel, led...

OKLAHOMA CITY (CNHI) — The Oklahoma House passed a bill Monday that would require public school textbooks that discuss evolution to include a disclaimer stating that it is a controversial theory and not fact. Rep. Bill Graves successfully included the language in House Bill 2194, a measure that originally changed the format for Braille versions of instructional materials. “I think so many of the textbooks make it appear that evolution is a scientific fact and it’s not,” said Graves, R-Oklahoma City. “Even the U.S. Supreme Court says it’s a theory, so I was just trying to make that clear. “I...

<p>One hundred days is not much time to streamline a massive and entrenched public school system. But that was the bold promise of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he became California's new governor last November.</p> <p>Schwarzenegger still has a long way to go, but after two months on the job, he has taken some notable steps.</p>

<p>College students already burdened by swelling tuition are being squeezed even more by textbook publishers who charge high prices for unnecessary new editions, according to a survey of professors released Thursday.</p> <p>Seventy-six percent of faculty surveyed said new editions of textbooks, often costing more than $100, are justified only half the time or less, according to the report by the student-led California Public Interest Research Group, known as CalPIRG.</p>

Corporate presence in college texts irks some students Publishers are placing more commercial references in college textbooks, especially those used by business majors, and some students say it makes them "furious." Preston Degginger, who just completed a degree in business at the University of Colorado at Denver, said he gets enough exposure to corporations walking down the street. "It makes me furious," Degginger said. "We see corporations and logos everywhere we go. It seems that just for some balance, we should be able to get away from that in the classroom." Pamela Mills, director of the bookstore at the University...

Bible-in-schools effort collecting signaturesCalifornia initiative would make Scriptures textbook for grades 1-12 Posted: January 7, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com A proposed California initiative that would provide the King James Bible as a textbook to public-school students is now being circulated for signatures. Organizers of the effort now have until May 24 to collect 598,105 valid signatures, which would put the initiative on the statewide ballot. As WorldNetDaily reported, the proposal makes the case that the King James Bible of 1611 is "one of the supreme achievements of the English Renaissance, and is rightly regarded as one of the most influential...