Title: Watch as Florida Parents are Treated Like Children for Questioning School Curriculum Source:
Blacklisted News URL Source:http://www.blacklistednews.com/Vide ... riculum/42166/0/38/38/Y/M.html Published:Feb 25, 2015 Author:Liberty Blitzkrieg Post Date:2015-02-25 09:14:56 by Deckard Keywords:None Views:1890 Comments:6
A Liberty Blitzkrieg reader who is a resident of Naples, Florida recently sent me a note highlighting a video in which he, and several other concerned parents, were reprimanded and treated like little children in a School Board Workshop as a result of them expressing concerns about school curriculum.
In order to give you some background on the issue, see the Letter to the Editor he wrote to the Naples Daily News on 1/28 to say what he was prevented from saying at the 1/20 School Board Workshop. Letter reprinted below:
Patton the cause
The controversy behind the recent parents’ review of school textbooks lays squarely at the feet of Superintendent Kamela Patton.
Specifically, Collier County School Board Policy 2240 reads, “Furthermore, the Superintendent shall prepare administrative procedures detailing the manner in which students and parents will be adequately informed, each year, regarding their right to inspect instructional materials, and the procedure for completing such an inspection.”
By failing to prepare procedures to implement Board Policy 2240, Patton created the perception the textbook review was a nighttime Watergate-style break-in masterminded by conservative political operative and School Board member G. Gordon Lichter.
I examined seventh-grade “Civics in Practice” and it contained numerous factual inaccuracies. For example, on Page 100 it states, “The Constitution can be changed in two ways; formally by Amendment, and informally by Government.” This notion of dictatorship is enhanced by eighth-grade textbook “United States History,” which states on Page 185, “The President issues Executive Orders. These commands have the power of law.”
While some called us book-burning Nazis, Page 274 of “Civics in Practice” states, “Citizens must be alert to propaganda” and glittering generalities is a “type of propaganda which often uses words such as freedom and patriotism.” This world government indoctrination is augmented on Page 425, where a geographical map of North America eliminates the United States, and places our great nation in nine new “cultural nations.”
For pointing this out, one public speaker at the School Board textbook workshop called us “narrow-minded, racist Bible-thumpers.”
Thank you, Superintendent Patton.
The author has assured me that there is absolutely zero racist or religious angle to any of his concerns, and that this is being shamelessly injected into the argument due to an inability to debate the actual concerns.
*As a disclaimer, I am not well versed in the intricacies of this debate, nor have I personally reviewed Collier County school materials. I welcome and encourage open debate in the comment section.
Without further ado, take a look at how contemptuously and dismissively these parents’ concerns are dealt with at the Collier Country School Board Workshop.
Specifically, Collier County School Board Policy 2240 reads, “Furthermore, the Superintendent shall prepare administrative procedures detailing the manner in which students and parents will be adequately informed, each year, regarding their right to inspect instructional materials, and the procedure for completing such an inspection.”
By failing to prepare procedures to implement Board Policy 2240, Patton created the perception the textbook review was a nighttime Watergate-style break-in masterminded by conservative political operative and School Board member G. Gordon Lichter.
The School Board of Collier County Bylaws & Policies
2240 - CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES
The consideration of controversial issues has a legitimate place in the instructional program of the schools.
Properly introduced and conducted, the consideration of such issues can help students learn to identify important issues, explore fully and fairly all sides of an issue, weigh carefully the values and factors involved, and develop techniques for formulating and evaluating positions.
For purposes of this policy, a controversial issue is a topic on which opposing points of view have been promulgated by responsible opinion or likely to arouse both support and opposition in the community.
The School Board will permit the introduction and proper educational use of controversial issues provided that their use in the instructional program:
A. is related to the instructional goals of the course of study and level of maturity of the students;
B. does not tend to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view;
C. encourages open-mindedness and is conducted in a spirit of scholarly inquiry.
Controversial issues related to the program may be initiated by the students themselves provided they are presented in the ordinary course of classroom instruction and it is not substantially disruptive to the educational setting.
Controversial issues may not be initiated by a source outside the schools unless prior approval has been given by the principal.
The Board recognizes that a course of study or certain instructional materials may contain content and/or activities that some parents find objectionable. If after careful, personal review of the program lessons and/or materials, a parent indicates to the school that either the content or activities conflicts with his/her religious beliefs or value system, the school will consider a written request for his/her child to be excused from a particular class for specified reasons. The student, however, will not be excused from participating in the course and will be provided alternate learning activities during times of such parent requested absences.
The Superintendent shall develop administrative procedures for dealing with controversial issues and with parental concerns about program content or the use of particular materials. Furthermore, the Superintendent shall prepare administrative procedures detailing the manner in which students and parents will be adequately informed each year regarding their right to inspect instructional materials and the procedure for completing such an inspection.
Controversial issues may not be initiated by a source outside the schools unless prior approval has been given by the principal.
Most of the letter's issues were not controversial, they were inaccurate.
The issue of North America being clumped together as a cultural region is a controversial subject, but at the least it could be addressed by the school board.
I see what they did here:
The policy above is informing the parents that they ARE NOT given the right to raise issues with inaccuracies, omissions, or lies contained within the textbooks or material, but they can raise issue with something that impinges upon their values or religious bearing.
The problem with this is that the policy effectively limits parental response to just controversial issues, and only to the point that it concerns individual students under their own limited control.
Furthermore, every one of those issues that the letter brings up could be considered "controversial", thus creating an impediment to review and correction since the Board only "informs" the parents of their right to review the text.
The policy should include a venue for parents to raise concerns about inaccuracies in the text, but I bet that it would not go well with the "system", so let's not get our hopes up.
On the other hand, I was told last year that any problems with Common Core will need to be taken up at the national level if there are problems with the course material. After looking over some of the 2nd Grade course material for the current year, I asked my son's 1st Grade teacher what I can do to help correct the material if needed. Her reply: "...you better hope that the teacher has a neutral perspective, otherwise he will learn whatever is on the agenda next year. It will take an act of Congress to change what Congress did not create."
It appears as if not all of the staff thinks that Common Core is the Kool-aid that needs to passed out for the kids...
