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<p>Oh heck: Hell hath no place in American primary and high school textbooks.</p> <p>But then again you can't find anyone riding on a yacht or playing polo in the pages of an American textbook either. The texts also can't say someone has a boyish figure, or is a busboy, or is blind, or suffers a birth defect, or is a biddy, or the best man for the job, a babe, a bookworm, or even a barbarian.</p>

<p>Thought police in American schools and rotten history textbooks are as great a threat to American freedoms as al Qaeda terrorists, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer David McCullough said yesterday.</p> <p>"Something's eating away at the national memory, and a nation or a community or a society can suffer as much from the adverse effects of amnesia as can an individual," Mr. McCullough, who wrote the best-selling biography of the United States' second president, John Adams, told The Washington Times. "I mean, it's really bad."</p>

Textbook Evolutionary Disclaimer Bill Defeated In Senate POSTED: 10:30 p.m. CDT May 12, 2003 OKLAHOMA CITY -- A bill requiring an evolution disclaimer in public school textbooks died by a narrow vote in the Oklahoma Senate on Monday. The vote was 24-20 for the motion to bring the bill back up for a second vote. The motion required 25 votes in the 48-member Senate, so it failed. Last week, senators voted 23-17 for the bill, two short of the 25 needed for passage. The main purpose of the measure was to give teachers increased protection against frivolous lawsuits, said...

History textbook tells buried military past Not taught in schools: Canadians in Conflict emphasizes how strife shaped country Heather Sokoloff National Post The first high school textbook on Canadian military history, published by Edmonton's school board because existing school books largely ignored the subject, has proven so popular they cannot be printed fast enough. The 203-page text emphasizes the importance of war in shaping a sovereign Canada. It comes at a time when parents have objected to teaching children how to spell ''gun'' and teachers' unions are among the most vocal opponents of the recent war in Iraq. But the...

WorldNetDaily Study: 'Language police' harming childrenActivists helping produce bored, cynical, 'dumbed down' students Posted: May 10, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Activist groups acting as "language police" are exerting increasing control over American schools, resulting in bored, cynical and "dumbed down" children, according to a three-year study of education policy. Diane Ravitch, author of "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn," notes the classic children's story "The Little Engine That Could" has been banned in some U.S. jurisdictions because the train is male, the National Post reported. "The Little Engine that Could" barred because train is male....

I was simply going to post this story when I figured -- What the Heck! I'll just go through the list of "language Police" articles and show the links also -- that won't take too long ---- NOT!! I could not believe how many instances of TextBook P.C. there was just in the past few months! Read the book that foretold it all: The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail Author : Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt MORE Language Police Tales! The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn Anyone interested in the subject of over-the-top political...

The classic children's story The Little Engine That Could has been banned in some U.S. jurisdictions because the train is male and The Friendly Dolphin rejected because it discriminates against students not living near the sea, according to a major study on education policy. The study found officials who approve classroom materials want references to dinosaurs removed, because they prompt questions about evolution, and owls stricken as they are taboo for Navajo Indians. Ketchup and french fries, bacon and eggs and ice cream and cake are also on the outs because of concerns over healthy eating habits. Even birthday parties...

California rejected a reading series for gender bias until The Little Engine That Could was given a sex-change operation. Such absurdities fill Diane Ravitch's new book, "The Language Police ", which is about the removal from school books and test questions of anything that might be offensive to anyone on the planet. Historical accuracy often conflicts with political correctness, writes Merle Rubin in the Los Angeles Times (requires registration). A "bias and sensitivity" panel removed a test essay about patchwork quilts made by 19th-century frontier women: "The reviewers objected to the portrayal of women as people who stitch and sew,...

<p>Should a textbook intentionally demean any person, gender, race or circumstance? Of course not. But neither should a textbook exclude the mere mention of such because it might -- might -- offend some segment of the population.</p> <p>Should a textbook omit a historical reality for the same reason? Worse yet, should it alter history to avoid doing the same? No and no.</p>

Fictional tales involving dinosaurs, disobedient children, coffee, Irish-American policemen and "exemplary upper-class people of bygone days" are being excised from American schoolbooks, according to a newly-published study on classroom policy in the United States. The prohibitions are devised and enforced by educational publishers fearful of losing lucrative state contracts if they break the rules of political correctness, or offend Right-wing fundamentalists. Their self-censorship is backed up by "guidelines" issued by some state governments. The result, according to Diane Ravitch, the author of the study and an assistant secretary of education in the previous Bush administration, is that publishers are flooding...

The school officials in California have decided that to be fair to everyone and to afford the students of California a fair, balanced and fat-free education they should try to eliminate all references to junk foods, stereotypes and sexism in the books that they use as text books in the classrooms. So what is on the list of banned phrases? Let's start with "Founding Fathers"! The powers that be have decided that the term "Founding Fathers" is sexist and shouldn't be used to teach our students and future generations. Never mind that they were all founders. Never mind that they...

Not content with attempting to ban soda, bake sales, and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches in schools, the food police now want your children to think there's no such thing as hot dogs or candy. California's textbook review process routinely eliminates reference to foods considered unwholesome -- French fries, sodas, cakes, and even ketchup and butter. Some of the outrageous changes made to textbooks and tests include: A piece on George Washington Carver, the inventor of peanut butter, was nixed because it might offend children who are allergic to peanuts. A picture of a birthday party was purged because it...

Taking your daughter to her first day of school can be traumatic. Not just for your little girl, but for you. I remember my feelings at the time and they were heart wrenching. Here was my five year old going out into the world for the first time and on her own. It took a while, but eventually I could drop her off and not get pangs of pain as I drove off. The difficulties had nothing to do with the school or the teachers or what was taught, they were just a father’s senses going a little overboard at...

<p>A textbook review process taking place in states across the country has changed or eliminated references to everything from the Founding Fathers to hot dogs, leaving many to charge educators with distorting history in the name of political correctness.</p> <p>The review process, which is routinely done in many states, is meant to eliminate or replace outdated words or phrases. But what’s happening has a lot of people wondering – quite literally – "Where’s the beef?"</p>

Not content with attempting to ban soda, bake sales, and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches in schools, the food police now want your children to think there's no such thing as hot dogs or candy. California's textbook review process routinely eliminates reference to foods considered unwholesome -- French fries, sodas, cakes, and even ketchup and butter. Some of the outrageous changes made to textbooks and tests include: A piece on George Washington Carver, the inventor of peanut butter, was nixed because it might offend children who are allergic to peanuts. A picture of a birthday party was purged because it...

<p>LOS ANGELES — A textbook review process in California has changed or eliminated references to everything from the Founding Fathers (search) to hot dogs, leaving many to charge the state with distorting history in the name of political correctness.</p> <p>The textbook review process, which is routinely done in many states, is meant to eliminate or replace outdated words or phrases. But what’s happening in California has a lot of people wondering – quite literally – "Where’s the beef?"</p>

<p>A textbook review process in California has changed or eliminated references to everything from the Founding Fathers (search) to hot dogs, leaving many to charge the state with distorting history in the name of political correctness. The textbook review process, which is routinely done in many states, is meant to eliminate or replace outdated words or phrases. But what’s happening in California has a lot of people wondering – quite literally – "Where’s the beef?" That’s because many California textbooks will no longer feature pictures of hot dogs, sodas, cakes, butter and other kinds of food that are not considered nutritious. Nor will the books contain any phrases judged to be sexist or politically insensitive.</p>

If you wonder why children in America's failed government school monopolies aren't learning, perhaps it's because P.C.-crazed educrats are too busy acting as left-wing thought police. Out in La-La Land, educrats are rewriting history to appease those who make a career of taking offense at reality. California's textbooks are being changed as follows, according to Fox News Channel: Even though all the signers of Constitution were specimens of those dreaded white males, "Founding Fathers" is a no-no, to be replaced by "The Framers." Pictures of naughty foods such as hot dogs, soft drinks, butter (even though that's better for...

<p>LOS ANGELES — A textbook review process in California has changed or eliminated references to everything from the Founding Fathers (search) to hot dogs, leaving many to charge the state with distorting history in the name of political correctness.</p> <p>The textbook review process, which is routinely done in many states, is meant to eliminate or replace outdated words or phrases. But what’s happening in California has a lot of people wondering – quite literally – "Where’s the beef?"</p>

<p>THE LANGUAGE POLICE: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. By Diane Ravitch. Knopf. 243 pages. $24.</p> <p>In her introduction titled "Forbidden Topics, Forbidden Words," Diane Ravitch, the nationally renowned educator and historian, describes how she "stumbled upon an elaborate, well-established protocol of beneficent censorship, quietly endorsed and broadly implemented by test publishers, textbook publishers, states and the federal government." What she next writes should send a shiver down the backs of parents with school children: "What I did not realize was that educational materials are now governed by an intricate set of rules to screen out language and topics that might be considered controversial or offensive. Some of this censorship is trivial, some is ludicrous, and some is breathtaking in its power to dumb down what children learn in school." The villains in this dumbing down process go by an innocent, virtuous title: "bias and sensitivity review" panel. These panels are tainted by a spreading and threatening disease, PCS, or Politically Correct Syndrome. Panel members — the language police — are routinely hired by publishers and state education agencies to screen every test and textbook for potential "bias." These panels, pressured by lobbies of left and right have, writes Ms. Ravitch, "evolved into an elaborate and widely accepted code of censorship . . . hidden from public sight." The author has collected examples of what some of these bias reviewers have recommended for elimination from school tests. A short biography of Gutzon Borglum, who designed the Mount Rushmore monument consisting of gigantic heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Why shouldn't school children read about this acclaimed national monument? Because the Lakota Indians, said the panel, consider the Black Hills a sacred place to pray and consider the sculpture "an abomination." Out. A passage about owls was eliminated from a proposed test because a panel member said that owls are taboo for the Navajos. Out. California has informed publishers not to include references in their textbooks to "unhealthy" foods such as: french fries, coffee, bacon, butter, ketchup and mayonnaise among others. California, along with Texas, have the largest school populations, so when their book-buying panels command, the four major textbook publishing houses stand at attention. Such prohibitions are promulgated by these powerful "bias and sensitivity review" panels not on the basis of any kind of research findings but "because the topics upset some adults, who assume that they will upset the children in the same way," writes Ms. Ravitch. "The guidelines ensure conformity of language and thought." Four different agencies promulgate the bias guidelines, which have become a preemptive form of censorship: educational publishers, test development companies, scholarly and professional associations and the states themselves. Some of these guidelines are simply mad. One commands textbook authors to acknowledge — this will come as news to American historians — that the United States was "patterned partially after the League of Five Nations, a union formed by five Iroquois nations." Literary classics by William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and others are bowdlerized to a degree I never dreamed possible. The ultimate goal of the academic curriculum, says one publisher's set of guidelines, is "to advance multiculturalism." The most stunning section of the book includes the 1993 guidelines prepared by McGraw Hill, one of the four conglomerate textbook publishers in the country. The basic thrust of the guidelines, says Ms. Ravitch, is not to depict the world "as it is and as it was, but only as the guideline writers would like it to be." She writes: "The bias guidelines are censorship guidelines. Nothing more, nothing less. This language censorship and thought control should be repugnant to those who care about freedom of expression." What the textbook and testing industry have accepted without demur or public discussion is that the object of education is to produce a generation of high school graduates who accept "diversity," which, of course, makes quotas inevitable and racial discrimination admirable. The real world is replaced by a politically correct fairy tale in which it is morally acceptable to "censor" "Romeo and Juliet" or "Macbeth" so as to ensure that the ninth-grade dears don't inhale wicked ideas. What does it matter if the classics are chopped and their authors betrayed? Indignation misplaced? Well then, go to the book's 32-page appendix, "A Glossary of Banned Words, Usages, Stereotypes and Topics." There you'll see the meaning of the cultural revolution incited by the "bias and sensitivity panels." Perhaps that appendix ought to be attached to George Orwell's "1984."</p>