I did something that I'll bet most of you have not done. I sat down for days and read the new Common Core Aligned Social Studies and Geography texts for 7th grade through 12th. I still have not read the Elementary Texts, but I will. I'm being told they are not new. Seems funny since the excuse for not letting the books out of school, at least to one fifth grader, was that they are "brand new" and the teacher can't let the students take them home. If I was one of those parents I would demand to see those texts. I taught for thirty years and we never had a policy of not releasing textbooks!! Unfortunately, I had a great deal of trouble getting to see these new texts. I asked parents first and the excuses as to why students couldn't bring their texts home were startling- they were all on line- but with the students pass word I still couldn't get in- hmmm. Then the new books story, then one student had no book!! They just did worksheets! My, my, our district paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a texbook adoption and this student's class isn't even using them!
So finally I went before the school board and asked what their policy was for letting the public see the textbooks. I was handed off to the curriculum director who told me I could only look at them on Thursday and Friday in the conference room at the district office because they were short on books and the teacher's might need them at any time. Even on the weekend?? Well, I went to the conference room and began reading. I read for two days (and took notes), but alas. there were too many books for me to read in two days. I came back on Monday and carried my stack of books down to the conference room , I felt like a criminal. As I began to read, suddenly there was a soft tap, tap on the door. Who could this be? I said "come in". Lo and behold it was the superintendent!! He said I could borrow the books for a few days. I was overjoyed at not having to come to detention every day!!
The point is, you own these books and have a right to see them. They should be available for you to check out from the school library. Every member of the public, but certainly the parents, should keep tabs on what these books are teaching our future generation. The fact that Pearson publishing has managed to set up a monopoly on textbook publishing should have everyone very concerned. It's interesting to read the introduction " These books are Common Core aligned. Common Core is a set of standards that determines what you SHOULD KNOW AND BE ABLE TO DO!! Hmmm- not a curriculum but only just exactly what you have to know and be able to do in every subject every day at every grade level in every school across the country. This is frightening stuff.
As you can imagine the themes were environmentalism, racism and social justice. Horace Mann, one of the founders of this school interventionism, thought that everything a child learned in school should be taught for the PURPOSE OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING THE CHILDREN!! People like Horace Mann are SO SURE they are right and superior, that they think it is their responsibility to brainwash your children. Right now, you are letting them do this.
Propaganda in these books is sometimes outright but is often just misleading. For example, Margaret Sanger was indeed the founder of Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood does indeed provide contraception. But wait a minute, Planned Parenthood also does abortions and sells body parts and Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who wanted to root out what she thought were undesirable people!!This information is not mentioned. Silent Spring was indeed a book that started the environmental movement, but wait a minute- her theory was debunked and she was discredited - where is that information?!!
The U.S. History book had one chapter on World War II and FOUR CHAPTERS ON RACISM. They broke racism down into special categories of people like Blacks, Native Americans, Latin Americans and Women. Clearly It's more important that we are all racists than that we are a successful, rich and powerful nation that liberated Europe. In fact, the whole book instructed our students that they ate more and used more water and had more money than other countries in the world, and therefore it was implied, they are guilty!! Guilty of what? If I have more money does it mean that someone else will necessarily have less? Does my having money stop them from achieving? People like Andrew Carnegie started out dirt poor. The ingenutity of these people that rose thousands of others out of poverty is just not applauded. They are accused of having sweat shops. They are accused of being responsible for people living in one room flats. Where do they think these people lived before? They were better off in the flats, that's why they wrote the "America" letters home to their families in Europe encouraging them to come to America too! Our children are not made to feel proud, they are made to feel ashamed.
America as Imperialist and Colonialist goes on and on. Yes, we left troops in the Phillipines, in fact, we still have troops in Germany today. That does not mean we have colonialized their government!! Using ports in American Samoa and Puerto Rico does not make us imperialist. We left Nicaragua and the Communists took over- gee that was great. I guess the only country that gets to have a sphere of influence is Russia- works well for them. Puerto Rico can become independent anytime they want- they keep voting it down because they live on benefits from the good old U.S. of A.!! I wish we could just tell them they're independent - leave now- we've supported you long enough!!
I was surprised to learn that Geography is now Science, History, Political Science, Anthropology and Sociology. Then, if you think of Horace Mann's mission, you just can't social engineer students teaching them longitude and latitude and where the countries, mountains, seas, rivers and oceans are can you? No, Geography now teaches that some families have "same sex" parents, and "Many people believe the earth is warming because of fossil fuels" and industries create "acid rain" and developers ruin rainforests " the earth's lungs"(where's the proof for that hyperbolic statement?!!) and on and on.These are young children- they will believe this stuff!! Didn't mention the let it burn policy and all the destruction of habitat and run off that that causes - hmmm- just an oversight I guess.
We used to have a Western Civilization class in high school - now they call it World Cultures - we wouldn't want to give Western Civilization any credit would we? The name of the new book, which used to be Governent taught in 12th grade, is "Power, Politics and You". This book didn't just make me mad- it made me fighting mad- and I don't get fighting mad. They brainstormed all the ways government bureaucracy is good and listed eighteen items!! I don't recall them mentioning our almost 20 trillion dollars in debt. They didn't mention all the corruption and duplication. They praised unions but never mentioned how all the lobbying is about jobs more than it's about good government. Did you know the Peace Corps and Head Start have reduced poverty by fifty percent?!! They have to explain to the children what the word posterity means but they expect them to answer questions in every chapter like ,"Was the Civil War inevitable?", "Was World War II inevitable?", "Should our definition of rights be expanded to include new privileges?" Obviously this is the first time students have seen this material- the writers of the book know what answer they want, and they will walk the students there.
The bandwagon technique is used constantly, referring to the 2nd amendment -"Debate continues over whether this right was meant to apply to individuals or to members of a state militia." Exactly how many people are debating this? Many times they just outright lie, "Our Constitution has been so successful because it is a flexible document that changes with the times", "Conservatives are people who want to control more and Liberals are people who believe more in freedom" ( I did get a belly laugh out of that one!!). And then there's their biased opinions stated as fact, "Nevertheless, the moderate reforms that were typical of progressivism produced real benefits for society."
I really encourage you to get ahold of these books and read them.Take notes and write down the page- everyone in America should know what the radical leftists are doing to our textbooks. And everyone in America should stop them!!
