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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law this week that ends teachers’ ability to abuse a book challenge law that was implemented to protect children from pornographic materials in school. The law now significantly limits the ability of Florida residents who do not have children in the state’s education system to be able to challenge book titles. “The idea that someone can use the parents rights and the curriculum transparency to start objecting to every single book to try to make a mockery of this is just wrong,” DeSantis said the day before the bill signing. “That’s performative. That’s political.”...

... I went to see Interstellar mainly because I was tickled by the fact that the bad guy is called "Dr Mann". But I took along my kids, and I'm glad I did because it's a good film to see with children or parents. Underneath all the saving-humanity space-travel stuff, the only relationship that matters in the movie is between dad Matthew McConaughey and his daughter. I'm tiptoeing around the startling evolution of that relationship, but let's just say that the, ahem, role reversal of their final scene together had my boys talking all the way home. Interstellar is directed...

The report, which would be publicly available, would cover "textbooks, leaflets, pamphlets, magazines, and other instructional materials." Palestinian boys raise their hands at a school in the Gaza Strip supported by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in September 2011. Credit: U.N. Photo/Shareef Sarhan.Palestinian boys raise their hands at a school in the Gaza Strip supported by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in September 2011. Credit: U.N. Photo/Shareef Sarhan. (November 2, 2023 / JNS) The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation...

The Biden administration has funneled more than $730 million to a United Nations organization for refugee assistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that harbored personnel who have incited violence against the Jewish people *** The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been accused in recent years of employing educators who “regularly call to murder Jews” and teach from textbooks “that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism,” according to a March joint report by the non-governmental organization UN Watch and the Israeli non-profit Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. The...

I reviewed five of the most commonly used AP U.S. History textbooks that cover all the way through the Trump presidency. Used every day by high school students in college-level history classes, the books all contain anti-Trump editorializing, false narratives, and employ selective editing to leave out significant stories that occurred during the Trump presidency. The books all appear on the College Board’s list of textbooks that meet the AP Course Audit curricular requirements. Nearly all of the textbooks claim “Russian meddling” was responsible for the 2016 election of Donald Trump, despite that narrative being debunked through multiple studies and...

A new study reveals that the UN aid agency, UNRWA, continues to educate Palestinian children about hatred and anti-Semitism, despite its commitments to avoid incitement. Thus, death and jihad were described in an Arabic grammar exercise as "the most important things in life", a Molotov cocktail attack on a bus was called a "barbecue party", and teachers glorified terrorists Itamar Eichner, March 14, 2023 Tags: Palestinians, incitement, UNRA, Adolf Hitler, Gaza Teachers and schools at UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, routinely call for the murder of Jews, produce teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage jihad and...

US State Department cites Jerusalem-based monitor’s findings on PA textbooks IMPACT-se has found the promotion of violence, martyrdom and jihad in "all grades and subjects." (June 8, 2022 / JNS) A U.S. State Department report on June 2 features research by a Jerusalem-based monitor of educational material in Palestinian Authority textbooks and their systematic messaging regarding the promotion of violence, martyrdom and jihad. Research by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Culture Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that textbooks made for “all grades and subjects” in Palestinian schools contained such incitement. The report also discussed IMPACT-se's critique of the...

Textbook publishers are surrendering to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ demands that math instructional materials get in line with state standards, allowing more books to be added to the approved list, according to the Florida Department of Education. “Publishers are aligning their instructional materials to state standards and removing woke content allowing the department of education to add 19 more books to the state adoption list over the past 17 days,” the Florida Department of Education announced on its website. The Florida Department of Education announced on April 15 that it had rejected 41% of math textbooks proposed by publishers for...

The parents don't even know what's going on because it's all at school,' says a fourth grade teacher in an interview. 'The parents question very little and they just assume the teacher knows what they're doing.' A world without textbooks or homework and where getting the wrong answer is celebrated may sound like an elementary student’s dream, but if such a fantasy becomes a reality, it would damage a generation of young minds. That is, however, exactly what is happening in many public elementary schools.Recently, I spoke with a fourth-grade teacher from the midwest, who shared her experience witnessing the...

Teachers in Virginia's largest school district have developed a new "anti-racist" and "culturally responsible" curriculum that will be available to students as early as this fall. Social studies teachers from Fairfax County collaborated with other Virginia public school teachers to revamp their history curriculum, using a framework from Teaching Tolerance, the educational arm of the liberal nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center. The new curriculum encourages students to "examine materials, events, and institutions critically attending to power, position, and bias" and will be available for use in 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 11th-grade classrooms. Colleen Eddy, Fairfax County Public Schools social...

"Scientists have raised questions about the dataset published in The Lancet last week that triggered the suspension of clinical trials around the world—and about Surgisphere Corporation, the company behind the study. " Surgisphere Corporation, the company that supplied data for a controversial study on the health risks of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients published in The Lancet last week (May 22), has found itself in the spotlight after researchers raised questions about the dataset. The Lancet study, which lists Surgisphere founder and CEO Sapan Desai as one of four coauthors, reported harmful effects tied to the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine among patients...

Getting ripped off on textbooks has long been part of the standard American college experience, up there with frat parties, cheap pizza, and bad choices. Now, though, one student has taken up the cause in a class-action lawsuit that calls out the three main textbook publishers for alleged antitrust violations. The lawsuit alleges that publishers Pearson, Cengage and McGraw-Hill, along with college bookstores, formed a conspiracy to monopolize the textbook market and inflate the price of course materials. The named plaintiff, Martha Barabas, sued on her own behalf and for the class of “at least hundreds of thousands if not...

For nearly 40 years, American students have been taught about their country’s history with communist disinformation by a historian who was a onetime Communist Party U.S.A. member and a lifelong promoter of communism. This is Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, which has sold over 2.6 million copies since its publication in 1980. It is the textbook of choice for Advanced Placement U.S. history courses in high schools, is used in college history and education courses, is packaged into free, downloadable lessons for K-12 teachers by the Zinn Education Project, is quoted extensively in school books, and...

American history textbooks can differ across the country, in ways that are shaded by partisan politics

As college textbook prices have increased 88 percent since 2006, education reformers wonder how universities can make books more affordable. One simple thing they could do is to stop selling textbooks with absurdly high mark-ups, the difference between the cost incurred by the bookstore for textbooks and the price at which they’re sold. While some progress has been made within the UNC system, much room for improvement remains. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, for example, signed a contract with Barnes and Noble in 2009 to merge its university bookstore with Barnes and Noble. That conjunction promised students lower...

... California is one of many states to ask teachers and textbooks in recent years to cover the contributions of specific immigrant groups, including Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders, European-Americans and Mexican-Americans. These additions are part of the reason California books are almost always longer than their Texas counterparts. California’s Board of Education adopted an expansive 842-page social studies framework in 2016. Two years later, Texas’ school board streamlined its social studies standards, which are now laid out in 78 tightly compressed pages. Critics of California’s approach say that making state standards and textbooks longer and more inclusive can be overwhelming to...

This appears to be a forthcoming 2019 edition of an existing textbook from the global education publishing giant Pearson, whose materials are ubiquitous. The friend highlighted some sections that show clear bias against political conservatives, President Trump and his administration, and Americans of faith. Here are some transcriptions from those images. In describing the rise of Black Lives Matter in the aftermath of the Ferguson, Missouri shooting: “The nearly all-white police force was seen as an occupying army in the mostly African-American town.” In a section discussing President Trump’s cabinet, the book says “They were largely white males, more so...

I came across this item as I was researching my new book, “Culture Jihad: How to Stop the Left From Killing a Nation.” Many Advanced Placement students across the fruited plain will be using an American History textbook that depicts President Trump as mentally ill and his supporters as racists. The textbook, published by Pearson Education, is titled, “By the People: A History of the United States.” It was first exposed by radio host Alex Clark in 2018. The final section of the book, titled, “The Angry Election of 2016” is especially critical of the president. “Most thought that Trump...

I have written repeatedly about the hard-left bias in the teaching of AP American History. I finally got tired of writing such posts and abandoned the beat. But now, I learn that, beginning in 2020, many Advanced Placement students will be using an American History textbook that suggests President Trump is mentally ill and that depicts him and many of his supporters as racists. The book asserts that “[Trump’s] not very-hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters.” What connected with a significant number of primary voters was Trump’s strong opposition to illegal immigration and his concern over...

A new Advanced Placement American history textbook is raising red flags because of its anti-Trump language and its suggestion that Trump supporters are racist. By the People: A History of the United States is the newest edition of a Pearson Education history book that could be made available to high school students if school districts opt to use it. The book has not yet been distributed to students but has been introduced to teachers to see if they would want to use it as part of their curriculum in the next couple of years. Tarra Snyder, a student at Rosemount...