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Starnes: Alabama school bans Reagan, Coulter, Levin summer reading list
Fox ^ | 6/23/2017

Posted on 06/23/2017 11:21:00 AM PDT by Altura Ct.

The summer reading list for Gene Ponder's AP Government and Economics class at Spanish Fort High School in Alabama is causing some trouble.

Mr. Ponder filled his list with books authored by conservatives -- and libertarians. I know – right? Imagine that - a conservative public school teacher! Sweet mercy, America! Miracles do happen.

Mr. Ponder’s summer reading list was a bonus assignment and included writers like Ann Coulter and Mark Levin and Ronald Reagan and Thomas Sowell.

For the past 10 years, he’s instructed the students to spend a portion of their summer reading just one book on the list.

It was voluntary, not mandatory.

They could choose from books like “God & Government,” “Black Rednecks and White Liberals,” “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto,” “FairTax: The Truth,” and “48 Liberal Lies About American History (That You Probably Learned in School).”

In other words, Mr. Ponder was providing the children with an alternative to the liberal propaganda that has saturated public school textbooks.

Well, you can probably guess what happened soon after the reading list was posted. The flat-tax hit the fan, as they say.

One local resident actually called the conservative authors “terrifying.”

Gulf Coast News Today reports critics complained about what they called the “perceived lack of diversity of ideas, as well as whether it met the reading levels required for a 12th grade AP class.”

If those kids were reading Mark Levin books, they were more than likely reading well-above the Advanced Placement requirements.

“The slant on this list is inappropriate and unbalanced,” one person wrote on Facebook – demanding a “more rounded reading list for these developing minds.”

The Baldwin County Board of Education got wind of the controversy and Mr. Ponder was ordered to pull his reading list and cancel the assignment.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: Alabama
KEYWORDS: readinglist

1 posted on 06/23/2017 11:21:00 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
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To: Altura Ct.

And they call US fascists.


2 posted on 06/23/2017 11:22:22 AM PDT by Pravious
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To: Altura Ct.

Pretty funny.

Find the AP English summer reading list for that school. I have no idea if there is such a thing. But I’m curious.


3 posted on 06/23/2017 11:24:42 AM PDT by petitfour (APPEAL TO HEAVEN)
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To: Altura Ct.

This is what happens when Progressives(aka Leftists) take over your child’s school. Look for another means to educate that child because it is a Socialist indoctrination center.


4 posted on 06/23/2017 11:28:38 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: Altura Ct.

McCarthy was right.


5 posted on 06/23/2017 11:29:37 AM PDT by bar sin·is·ter
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To: Altura Ct.

Remind me again ... who’s the facists


6 posted on 06/23/2017 11:30:39 AM PDT by clamper1797 (We are getting close to the last "box")
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To: Altura Ct.

Not surprised, there are ALOT of Libs in Spanish Fort now.


7 posted on 06/23/2017 11:33:44 AM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: bar sin·is·ter
McCarthy was right

McCarthy was right about many of the infiltrated offices of the Truman administration. Liberals also tag McCarthy with the HUAC of which McCarthy was a Senator, not a Congressman. But, facts and history are not to get in the way of the liberals and Democrats' narrative. Nevermind that the government was wiretapping the Russian communication lines and knew who the traitors were and wasn't revealed until the late 1990's.

8 posted on 06/23/2017 11:36:28 AM PDT by vetvetdoug
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To: Altura Ct.

This ‘outrage’ is the direct result of Liberal Yankees moving in to The Old South and bringing their damned habits with them.

They made their places they lived into liberal cesspools, decided they didn’t like it, then moved here and immediately begin to re-create the cesspools they left.................


9 posted on 06/23/2017 11:43:56 AM PDT by Red Badger (Unless you eat The Bread of Life, you are toast!.......................)
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To: Altura Ct.

It used to be that telling kids they can’t (or shouldn’t) do something actually ended up encouraging them to do the ‘banned’ thing. It would be hilarious if that turns out to be the case here. I can just see teenagers hiding in closets with a flashlight & a book by Mark Levin.


10 posted on 06/23/2017 11:55:09 AM PDT by Twotone (Truth is hate to those who hate truth.)
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To: Pravious

They lie about the meaning of words and expect us to fall into line over it.
NO.


11 posted on 06/23/2017 12:01:17 PM PDT by Shimmer1 ("Diversity is an OBSTACLE to be overcome, not a goal to be achieved." -Ann Coulter)
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To: bar sin·is·ter; All

“McCarthy was right”

30 some odd years ago when I was in college on my first attempt we had a debate regarding McCarthyism and as a summation my stance was that it was the right message but perhaps it was the wrong messenger, in that McCarthy’s reasoning was completely overshadowed by his raging alcoholism and communists (leftists) played that one all the way to the end which was ruined McCarthy.

Right after class the professor asked to see me in private and he basically asked me what the heck was I trying to prove, and I told him quite frankly “just wait and see time will tell.” And guess what? I was right.

If there’s ever going to be another message like a McCarthy message In This Modern and complex society that we live it has to be beyond a shadow of a doubt that the messenger is a above the mud slinging.


12 posted on 06/23/2017 12:07:36 PM PDT by Clutch Martin (Hot sauce aside, every culture has its pancake, just as every culture has its noodle.)
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To: Altura Ct.
But, Marx is ok, right?
13 posted on 06/23/2017 12:36:23 PM PDT by Know et al ( Keep on Freepin'!!!)
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To: Altura Ct.
I saw the list. It came across as ridiculously one-sided and if they had been all leftist books everyone here would be outraged at the attempted indoctrination of the kids. Teachers should not be using classes as a tool to convey their political beliefs to kids, period.

It was voluntary, not mandatory.

It doesn't make any sense that reading a long book and writing a report on it during the summer could be seriously expected to be completed by more than a tiny handful of students unless it were mandatory. Furthermore, posting such a one-sided list conveys the message that students better show they have the same politics as the teacher to get a good grade.

14 posted on 06/23/2017 12:50:37 PM PDT by wideminded
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To: petitfour

I subbed this year for the first time and was appalled at the reading level, subject matter, and common core social indoctrination. . .Let’s not even go the writing debacle. I wrote on the white board for 6th graders that informed me I needed to print because they couldn’t read cursive.

If I were a parent, I would be going to the public library this summer with the kids and checking out books prior to 1970 or linking to a reputable conservative website that has age appropriate material.

Children are so misguided today.


15 posted on 06/23/2017 1:08:34 PM PDT by Maudeen (No one on this earth is too far gone for Jesus.)
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To: Know et al
But, Marx is ok, right?

Thomas Sowell, one of the authors on the list, started out as an expert on Marxist economics.

The teacher could have kept the same list and added Marx and various other leftist authors and people would be a lot more OK with it. He could have even said pick one from column A and one from column B. But he only had column A.

16 posted on 06/23/2017 1:11:24 PM PDT by wideminded
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To: Altura Ct.

How do liberals find the time to read with all the protests they have to attend?


17 posted on 06/23/2017 1:44:25 PM PDT by ScopeWizard
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To: Altura Ct.
The Baldwin County Board of Education got wind of the controversy and Mr. Ponder was ordered to pull his reading list and cancel the assignment...do they burn books too?.......
18 posted on 06/23/2017 2:22:57 PM PDT by Intolerant in NJ
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To: Altura Ct.

Next, these barbarians will be calling for the arrest of parents who allow their children to read such unPC books. In fact, they will celebrate, as they find out that jack boot enforcers on Easter Morning, jam these non-conforming parents into prisoner vans destined for work camps.

The same hatred that these intolerant bigots had for blacks has been transferred to the conservatives. These godless savages belong to the Church of Hate. It is part of their DNA when God is out of their hearts.


19 posted on 06/23/2017 2:23:16 PM PDT by jonrick46 (The Left has a mental illness: A totalitarian psyche.)
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