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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums14 Wacky "Facts" Kids Will Learn in Voucher Schools
This article cites Louisiana schools, but these same books are approved for use in North Carolina and other states. These "facts" aren't wacky, they're indoctrination. From the article:
Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lordall on the state taxpayers' dime.
Many of these schools, Kopplin notes, rely on Pensacola-based A Beka Book curriculum or Bob Jones University Press textbooks to teach their pupils Bible-based "facts," such as the existence of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster and all sorts of pseudoscience that researcher Rachel Tabachnick and writer Thomas Vinciguerra have thankfully pored over so the rest of world doesn't have to.
Here are some of my favorite lessons:
4. Africa needs religion: "Africa is a continent with many needs. It is still in need of the gospel
Only about ten percent of Africans can read and write. In some areas the mission schools have been shut down by Communists who have taken over the government."Old World History and Geography in Christian Perspective, 3rd ed., A Beka Book, 2004
6. The KKK was A-OK: "[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001
7. The Great Depression wasn't as bad as the liberals made it sound: "Perhaps the best known work of propaganda to come from the Depression was John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
Other forms of propaganda included rumors of mortgage foreclosures, mass evictions, and hunger riots and exaggerated statistics representing the number of unemployed and homeless people in America."United States History: Heritage of Freedom, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1996
11. Abstract algebra is too dang complicated: "Unlike the 'modern math' theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Book teaches that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute
A Beka Book provides attractive, legible, and workable traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory."
13. "Global environmentalists have said and written enough to leave no doubt that their goal is to destroy the prosperous economies of the world's richest nations."Economics: Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1999
Remaining "facts" at link. Read their take on Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson (I'm pretty sure they dislike Dickinson for her Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church)
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)Thinking gets in the way of belief, which is why they're against thinking.
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)though. I mean c'mon, they've put in books a comparison of a fetus to blacks under Dred Scott. Want to make sure kids don't come up with their own interpretations.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)these voucher schools.
goldent
(1,582 posts)I know that was one of the new math topics they experimented on with my generation. I'm surprised they still do that - thought they gave up on that one and moved on to other experiments. I know with my kids, they were taught several techniques on how to do long multiplication, helping increase the chances they will not remember any of them.
You might suspect I'm not happy with how experiments on performed on our school children
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Gee, so we can FORGET Calculus since it's about CHANGE.
ThoughtCriminal
(14,049 posts)Along with the 9 Billion Names problem before shutting it all down.
BarackTheVote
(938 posts)Christianity was a doomsday cult right up until about the turn of the first century. For exegesis, it's important to keep that in mind when reading the Pauline letters for example. So, given that for 2000 years, the world has not ended, I'm inclined to say we probably have a good long while before the end times. That said, American Xtians are clearly under the thrall of the anti-Christ.
Tongue-in-cheek, but not really.