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Islamofascism: A new study confirms our "ally" Saudi Arabia is still poisoning young Muslim minds with anti-Western textbooks. So? Its hate-filled graduates are enrolling at our colleges.The Hudson Institute reviewed the 2007-08 textbooks distributed by the Saudi Ministry of Education and found that, despite promised reforms, the kingdom still teaches students to "hate the infidels." The texts assert that it's "permissible" for a Muslim to kill an "apostate," an "adulterer," a "homosexual," as well as non-Muslims practicing "polytheism," or Christianity. The violent ideology is introduced in a religion textbook in the first grade and reinforced and developed in following years...

WASHINGTON — Two years after protracted American-Saudi negotiations persuaded the State Department that the Saudis would remove religious intolerance from their national textbooks, a new study finds the books still portray non-Sunni Muslims as the enemies of true believers. The report from the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute finds that the Saudi textbooks are filled with the austere supremacism of the Wahhabi sect of Islam, despite promises from the Kingdom in 2006 to alter them. For example, a textbook for 10th graders on Islamic jurisprudence not only says it is permissible in Islam to murder a homosexual,...

After two decades of unconscionable increases in tuition and fees, colleges and universities increasingly are employing a new scam to swindle students and their parents out of whatever pennies they have left: the custom textbook. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, publishers make a few minor tweaks to a standard textbook, jack up the price and sell the special edition to the captive thousands who are required to buy it for required courses. For example, the University of Alabama requires all 4,000 of its freshmen to pay $59.35 for a spiral-bound special edition of "A Writer's Reference." The university's...

In yet another example of why the west could be too weak to fight the sort of global terrorism that takes the form of Islamofascism, a textbook monitoring group is charging that American textbooks have been cleansed of mentioning the violence inherent in the Islamic "Jihad." Now, our children will not be taught what "Jihad" truly means, nor that it has been used as an excuse to kill their fellow citizens because our schools have sanitized Islam of all outrage and violence. Will the media follow this story and report that our children are being exposed to Islamic propaganda like...

WASHINGTON — Talk about a civics lesson: A high-school senior has raised questions about political bias in a popular textbook on U.S. government, and legal scholars and top scientists say the teen's criticism is well-founded. They say "American Government" by conservatives James Wilson and John Dilulio presents a skewed view of topics from global warming to separation of church and state. The publisher now says it will review the book, as will the College Board, which oversees college-level Advanced Placement courses used in high schools.

LONDON (AFP) - The British government is to investigate a school funded by Saudi Arabia's government involved in a row over textbooks allegedly describing Jews as "monkeys" and Christians as "pigs", the Times has reported. The King Fahad Academy in west London has already said it will remove the disputed chapters from the books in question, which it said were used as "secondary sources". It claims the controversy arose from a misinterpretation of the Koran-based material and stresses it does not teach hatred. But schools minister Jim Knight has said he wants reassurance that the school is complying with requirements...

/begin my translation What is inside N. Korean Textbook for First Grade in Elementary School [2006-08-25] The textbook for first grade Korean in N. Korean elementary school, published by N. Korean Educational Books Publishing in 2005(Juche 94)  Kids studying so-called "Slogan Tree." (my note: N. Koreans are taught that Kim Il-sung carved trees all over the country in order to encourage people to rise up against Japanese oppression. It is a sheer fabrication cooked up for their propaganda.) The text says, "Elder sister tells us one at a time. She tells us, while pointing at a Slogan Tree." The slogan on the tree says, "Long...

SACRAMENTO Caught in a political dustup over English-learning students and their own philosophical divide, members of the state Board of Education decided Wednesday to put their trust in the state's top political leaders to restore funding after the body was stripped of its entire operating budget. The loss of the board's $1.6 million annual staff budget came as political retaliation for its split vote in April not to allow alternative textbooks for English-learner students. The board rejected pleas from bilingual education advocates to allow schools to use different textbooks for students learning English. That vote angered the Democratic Latino Caucus,...

ADF filed friend-of-the-court brief in defense of textbook stickers which accurately stated that evolution is a theory ATLANTA — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit today vacated a lower court decision that declared Cobb County science textbook stickers which stated “evolution is a theory, not a fact” unconstitutional. The court was critical of the district court for issuing its ruling against the stickers despite holes in the evidentiary record in the case and remanded the case back to the district court for new proceedings. “No school should be in trouble for simply stating the facts. That’s what...

A TEXTBOOK used at schools in the Indian state of Rajasthan compares housewives to donkeys, and suggests the animals make better companions as they complain less and are more loyal to their "masters", The Times of India reported today. "A donkey is like a housewife ... In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents' home, you'll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master," the newspaper reported, quoting a Hindi-language primer meant for 14-year-olds. The book was approved by the state's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party...

Pakistan deletes 'pro-Bush' poem Mr Bush (left) is a key backer of President Musharraf Pakistan's government is to remove a poem from a school textbook after it emerged the first letters of each line spelt out "President George W Bush".The anonymous poem, called The Leader, appeared in a recent English-language course book for 16 year-olds.Critics say it praises Mr Bush. Its rhyming couplets describe someone "solid as steel, strong in his faith".Officials cannot explain how the poem entered the curriculum. Pupils are to ignore it ahead of a reprint next year.Not deliberate'The BBC's Zaffar Abbas in Islamabad says it...

I know that this may be a long read, there's a lot of content here, but I think that many FReepers will find the information here interesting and disturbing. I will appreciate any help I can get with this situation. My wife and I have been homeschooling our children since they started schooling. We have 5th, 6th, and 8th graders. Recently, we made the tough decision to enroll them in a local Charter School. In Arizona, a Charter School is a privately run, smaller, more focused public school. It provides parents with school choice and some competition between the schools....

Publisher says Bible textbook respects both facts and faith NEW VOLUME IS AIMED AT PUBLIC SCHOOLS By Richard N. Ostling Associated Press Posted on Fri, Sep. 23, 2005 An interfaith group released a new textbook Thursday aimed at teaching public high school students about the Bible while avoiding legal and religious disputes. The non-profit Bible Literacy Project of Fairfax, Va., spent five years and $2 million developing ``The Bible and Its Influence.'' The textbook, introduced at a Washington news conference, won initial endorsements from experts in literature, religion and church-state law. American Jewish Congress attorney Marc Stern, an adviser on...

The London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat has published a report by Huda Jasim on changes made to Iraqi schoolbooks following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. The new schoolbooks will be introduced with the start of the 2005/6 school year in September. According to the report, the Iraqi education minister formed a committee of senior educators and specialists to reexamine the country's school curricula for the new Iraq. The committee proposed substantial changes to be made to the school textbooks, with the aim of completely eradicating the Saddam personality cult and placing considerably less emphasis on the Ba'th Party than...

China confiscates textbooks over 'wrong' colored TaiwanChinese authorities in Dalian confiscated more than 120 educational books that a Japanese school imported from Japan, on the grounds that some books showed Taiwan as a separate country from mainland China, it was learned Tuesday. Officials at the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said that it was the first time that one of the eight Japanese schools in China had had educational materials seized by Chinese authorities. Customs duties officials in Dalian seized 128 social studies books, which the Japanese school there imported for the 2005 school year that...

Sunday May 08, 2005 LOS ANGELES (AP) Louis Leithold, who wrote one of the most widely used calculus textbooks and helped change the way the subject is taught, has died. He was 80. Leithold was found dead April 29 at his Los Angeles home by the parent of a worried student. The coroner's office said he died of natural causes. Leithold wrote ``The Calculus,'' which became a standard text and was credited with changing the way the subject is studied. The book, first published in 1968, is widely used in high schools and universities and is in its seventh printing....

Japan Criticizes China History Textbooks By JOSEPH COLEMANAssociated Press Writer Chinese residents in Japan hold banners denouncing the Chinese communist party during an anti-Chinese communist party rally at a Tokyo park Sunday, April. 24, 2005. Hundreds of Chinese protesters rallied in support of the Japanese government. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye) Height (pixels): 512 Width (pixels): 363 TOKYO -- Japan opened a new front in its dispute with China on Sunday by sharply criticizing Beijing's history textbooks, signaling continued friction between the Asian powers despite high-profile diplomatic moves to quell tensions. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura refuted Chinese claims that Japanese...

I'm teaching an Environmental Science course in a NYC high school. The textbook I'm using is about 10 years old, so it has some stuff about off-road vehicles, but not so much about gas-guzzling SUVs. I've come right out and told my students that some things that appear in the book look like they were written by whackos who care for the environment first and people second, and I've told them that I would let help them separate fact from hype. So I was stunned when I saw the following passage in the textbook. It was in a sidebar article...

Beijing blacks out anti-Japan protests By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING - As anti-Japanese protests continued for a third day in a row Tuesday, government censors imposed a news blackout on coverage of protests, signaling that Beijing was trying to contain further damage to already strained Sino-Japanese relations. None of the nation's thousands of newspapers, television stations and news websites carried any details of the protests that took the capital by storm on Saturday. On Sunday, hundreds of full-gear riot police blocked access to the diplomatic quarter in downtown Beijing, but avoided direct confrontation with protesters. In sharp contrast with the full...

In Rare Legal Protest, Chinese Seek Boycott of Japan Goods By JOSEPH KAHN BEIJING, Saturday, April 9 - Several thousand young Chinese marched through Beijing's high-tech district on Saturday morning calling for a boycott of Japanese-made goods, a rare legal protest that underscored the sharp deterioration in relations between Asia's two most powerful countries. The mostly college-age Chinese, singing China's national anthem and shouting, "Support the Chinese motherland, boycott Japanese goods," appeared to number in the thousands, but there were no official estimates on Saturday morning. The police formed a cordon around the marchers and lined every street along the...

WASHINGTON -- If you look closely, what is inside your child's textbooks may shock you. They are full of evolution theories, and many liberal historians are rewriting American history as well. But there is even more. How Islam is portrayed in today's textbooks is a subject of concern also. The familiar images of Islam include praying at Mecca, and the prophet Muhammad, a man Muslims say is the messenger of God. But this is not the whole story. When all is said and done, the story of Islam is being told and taught to our nation's school kids in their...

St. Louis Public Schools administrators pulled a lesson from a new reading curriculum after some parents complained that it was racist. -snip- The first-grade homework lesson involved the sound the letter "H" makes. It showed a monkey named "Hip." Hip tipped his hat and tap danced. He ended up in a cage eating a banana at the end of the lesson.

A bill that for the first time would require the state to negotiate for the best price on textbooks -- inspired by a Mercury News investigation -- now sits on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk awaiting his signature or veto. In an odd alliance, Senate Republicans have joined with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, a Democrat, to try to derail the measure. They say the bill would require hiring expensive, highly skilled negotiators to haggle prices with publishers. But educators and taxpayers groups, urging the governor to sign, say the expense would be negligible compared with the potential millions...

MOSCOW - If you can judge a book by its cover, then the History of Russia and the World in the 20th Century tells students the Soviet past was all pride and glory — three of four cover photos invoke Soviet propaganda images. That goes for what's inside, too: The textbook for Russian high school seniors touts the Soviet system's achievements — but treads lightly, if at all, on its failures and abuses. It is virtually mute on the deportation of ethnic groups under Josef Stalin that left hundreds of thousands dead and sowed the resentment that exploded in Chechnya...

Sanitized Tests THE JOURNAL NEWS By FREDREKA SCHOUTEN AND MERYL HYMAN HARRIS In the world of standardized tests, Christmas never comes. No one celebrates Halloween or birthdays. Kids rarely encounter a french fry. And no one dies. Ever. The tests taken by millions of schoolchildren are scrubbed clean of topics that might reflect ethnic, cultural or regional biases. Yonkers students shouldn't be expected to have a vast knowledge of corn production, and Florida 10-year-olds shouldn't be expected to compose essays about blizzards. Subjects viewed as inappropriate or potentially upsetting to children, such as death, violence, drugs or sex, are out...

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>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>It was the most unusual campaign for high political office that California had ever seen, one that broke many -- perhaps all -- of the informal rules in the book.</p> <p>But Arnold Schwarzenegger was the most unusual candidate that California had ever seen, a self-made one-time bodybuilder who had parlayed his muscular physique, quick-study intelligence, boundless self-confidence -- and a knack for psyching out rivals -- into a big-time movie career.</p>

Phil Stinson - 08:56pm Aug 24, 2003 EDT 458Carpe CarpiumI'm a teacher and also a member of a national commitee of school textbook consultants. We removed the fourth verse of the song "America" from the recent music textbooks. The first verse was fine. "My country, 'tis of thee Sweet land of liberty of thee I sing..." The fourth verse says "Our Father's God, to Thee Author of liberty, to Thee we sing. Long may our land be bright, with feedom's Holy light, Protect us by Thy might, Our God, our King." That verse was deemed unsuitable and requiring students to...

Why drive to Baghdad was a textbook campaign, flaws and all By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad and Christopher Bellamy 12 April 2003 Iraq 2003 is a campaign "military historians and academics will pore over for many years to come", according to Air Marshal Sir Brian Burridge, the top British commander in the Gulf. The rapid success of the military invasion can be traced to the combination of American technological superiority, speed and firepower and the disorganised defence mounted by the Iraqis. Plan 1003 Victor, the Pentagon war plan, had two key principles: "inside out" and "Baghdad first". It may not...

In Bid to Shape a Postwar Iraq, U.S. Goes by the Schoolbook By David B. Ottaway and Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff writers Sunday, April 6, 2003; Page A32 When the new Iraqi school year begins in five months, the Bush administration hopes to have in place wholesale revisions to textbooks that have taught a generation of Iraqis to be ready to die for Saddam Hussein. The revisions are part of an ambitious U.S. effort to demilitarize a school curriculum that has touted Iraqi battlefield prowess and weaponry and demonized the United States as a fearsome enemy. Expatriates and scholars...

<p>California's board of education would be required to weigh price when adopting new textbooks for the state's 6 million public school students under bills introduced in both houses of the state Legislature on Friday.</p> <p>The bills' sponsors faulted the state board for its failure to control spiraling textbook prices. The proposed laws are a response to a Mercury News investigation in December that revealed prices of state-adopted textbooks have nearly tripled in some cases in the past decade -- in part because the state board, which has sole power in choosing texts, does not bother to negotiate for the best price.</p>