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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsShocking Christian school textbooks
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/shocking_christian_school_textbooks/singleton/On the list of schools approved to receive funding through the new voucher funding, that critics warn could eventually cut public school funding in half, are schools that teach from the Christian fundamentalist A Beka Book, Bob Jones University Press, and Accelerated Christian Education curriculum.
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One of the schools cleared to receive substantial new funding through LA governor Bobby Jindals voucher program is Eternity Christian Academy, in Westlake, LA, which according to Independent Weekly writer Walter Pierce,
has been approved to accept 135 new students. Thats a considerable uptick in enrollment, which at the end of this school year stood at 38 a more than 300 percent increase. Talk about buttressing the budget; $1 million in tax dollars will be diverted from the public school system to Eternity Christian, a school that, according to its mission statement, offers a quality faith-based curriculum that is soley [sic] based on principles from the Bible
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Like the ACE curriculum, A Beka and Bob Jones textbooks promote Young-Earth creationism, are heavily laden with political bias, and at times verge on racism. As shown in the following video, among the dubious, factually incorrect, politically tendentious, and racially and culturally insensitive claims in A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press textbooks are the following:
Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.
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 In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.
God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ.
It cannot be shown scientifically that that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmospheres ozone layer.
God has provided certain checks and balances in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists.
the Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda.
Unions have always been plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created.
Bill Clintons 1992 presidential win was due to an imaginary economic crisis created by the media.
The greatest struggle of all time, the Battle of Armageddon, will occur in the Middle East when Christ returns to set up his kingdom on earth.
missheidi
(168 posts)...the public schools in the area were crime-ridden, and the school was overall failing, so my brother and I were enrolled into a Christian school. We had no choice. I agree, while it did teach based upon the Christian views and beliefs, it was horrid in its bashing of Clinton and Carter (bashing...hmm...not very Christian, IMO), and we were taught that to vote Democratic was a sentence to Hell. I actually had an English teacher tell me that. I vote Democratic...so we'll see
While I am religious, I do not think that textbooks should teach based upon religion. All children should learn the same, especially science/biology-wise. We learned NOTHING about sex or reproduction except a vivid description of abortion at various stages. Eh.
bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)The full story is not showing up. Only the title.
benld74
(9,888 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Education is education. There is no such thing as Christian education. The Republicans want to defund public education so that they can have only fucking, stupid Biblical literacy as education.
The best way to do this is to privatize education so that it becomes mere religious edumacation.
Fuck that!
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)and was never subjected to any of those Christian texts. And this was in the '50s and '60s.