Fact vs. Fiction (No wonder we have problems in schools, this is a hoot!)

FoxNews ^

[chance33_98]

Fact vs. Fiction

An analysis of New York's public school textbooks and library holdings by the New York Daily News finds that the material available to young students is, in addition to being riddled with errors, full of politically correct claptrap passing as conventional wisdom.

In one book, jihad is defined as "to do one's best to resist temptation and overcome evil." In another, Al Sharpton is said to hail from a "long tradition of activist ministers like Martin Luther King Jr." and Louis Farrakhan is described as a "black American of achievement" who bears a "message no American can ignore."

Gail Stein, a teacher in New York City and the author of several French textbooks, said she was told to remove references to perfume (it's sexist), champagne (might encourage underage drinking) and chocolate mousse made with cognac (same reason).

In a history textbook, America's Past and Promise, middle school students are told that a 1915 photo of men linking hands around the world's biggest tree, the General Sherman sequoia in California, are "conservationists … [trying] to stop loggers from cutting it down" when actually they were just measuring it.

And thanks to creationist complaints in Texas, textbooks that once referred to geological events taking place "millions of years ago" and fossil fuels "formed millions of years ago" now say such things happened "in the distant past" or "over time." The previous descriptions conflicted with biblical timelines, you see.

[TaZ]

The reasons schools in America are failing is because the text books and teaching criteria available are total crap...poorly conceived and full of propaganda and revisionism.

Instead of molding the opionions of young people, why aren't they just taught the facts? Can't they be trusted to form their own opinions?

Anyone who doesn't see the basic mind-control inherent in the system is either complicit or part of the problem.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[chatham]

You don't have to worry about the crap in the textbooks, the Kids haven't been taught to read, so there is no danger of them learning anything wrong.

[bassmaner]

This is interesting in that it points out that PC is a phenomenon of the right as well as the left - i.e. the underage drinking reference and the evolution reference.

Our side should be aware of such claptrap in our own ranks, as well as the ranks of the leftist enemy.

[Bob Mc]

"This is interesting in that it points out that PC is a phenomenon of the right as well as the left ..."

This is also evidence that both the left and right are fighting for control of the big government stick in public schools. Get Government out of public schools, and then there will be no need for the left and right to wrestle for control. They can both choose their own schools, letting parents and the free market decide what kind of teaching is valued.