The Tea Party Wants to Teach Your Kids About the Constitution

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:




Come September, public schoolkids could be receiving a tea party-fueled tutorial in the Constitution—or at least, the movement's version of it.

In 2004, at the urging of the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), Congress required any school accepting public money to teach students about the Constitution during the week of September 17. Most people are unaware of this "Constitution Week" requirement, and few schools have apparently complied with the mandate.

Enter the Tea Party Patriots, one of the nation's largest tea party umbrella groups, which has seized on this obscure congressional mandate, urging its members to "adopt a school" during Constitution Week. The group recently blasted out an alert to supporters that included instructions on how to pressure school officials to follow the congressional requirement. If they refuse, TPP advocates staging a protest and alerting the media to the school's failure to adhere to the law. "Patriots should not have to remind schools to teach the history of the most important document in our country," TPP's leaders write on the group's website explaining the new campaign. "That we have to do so is an indication of how awful the public school system has become with regard to teaching U.S. history."

Teaching kids about the Constitution is certainly a laudable goal, especially given the many public surveys showing that most Americans can't even name the three branches of government. But it's the tea partiers' favored curriculum that may concern parents of both liberal and conservative persuasions. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/tea-party-constitution-week-skousen

[Drale]

1. If I had kids and found out the tea party was trying to teach them anything

I would sue the entire movement for child abuse.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. ...and re-write it in the process.

[Initech]

3. The Constitution is a divine document that may have biblical roots?

Holy shit, what are the teabaggers smoking and where might I obtain some? :crazy:

[Igel]

7. I didn't know Skousen was into Anglo-Israelism.

Otherwise, it's the kind of article I really dislike. At the end you're fairly convinced that you have a good idea what the "curriculum" is like, even though at no point does the writer actually say anything about it. In fact, she basically says she hasn't seen it.

It might be whackadoodle. Probably is. Then again, it might not be. Doesn't matter. We've been manipulated to think we know something we haven't been told.

The writer knows she's doing it. The editor knows she's doing it. Sorry, I read too much Izvestija and Pravda, too much Rude Pravo and other East European dreck to have that kind of thing sit well.

Then again, I still find it interesting that he was an adherent of Anglo-Israelism. I suspect it explains a few things.

[mzteris]

4. somehow -

I don't think I have to worry about this one here in liberal Madison, WI!

These teachers are really fired up against the teabaggers already!

[socialist_n_TN]

5. Well they've got to learn about it themselves first

:rofl:

[Wounded Bear]

6. Isn't one of their premises that public education is unconstitutional?

More paradox!

:crazy:

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. That sounds like

Indoctrination to me! Didn't the right have a fit about Obama addressing schools and telling kids to study hard? And now the Tea Party wants to claim the right to teach OUR kids their propaganda about the constitution!! I mean isn't it bad enough that they "educated" our congressmen about the constitution? :crazy: :silly: :puke: