New Invasion of Public Schools: Christianity?

There are certain websites that we all know are a bunch of bunk; websites that are filled with opinion and ideology but nary a fact. Of course, PolitiChicks is decidedly conservative but I cannot recall a fellow writer who didn’t have the facts to back her article up. Sure, you’ll see opinion, not least of all mine, but you know that the opinions are backed up with truthful information.

One of my fellow PolitiChicks happens to read Salon sometimes just for the laugh and brought an article to my attention regarding education. It is a piece entitled “Creationism is Just the Start: How Right Wing Christians are Warping American Schools.” (Excuse me while I have a good laugh…)

The focus of the propaganda is in the state of Texas where apparently “conservatives have been able to inject a shocking number of lies and disinformation into public school history classrooms.”

Yes, according to Salon those nasty conservatives are trying to “trick” and “brainwash” kids into knowing how Christianity plays a role in American society. The school even has the audacity to offer up some history textbooks that see America as a country founded on Christianity–and they might be trying to destroy democracy, too!

First, we are not a democracy. The founders never intended for us to be a democracy. Yes, we have democratic processes, but it is not the sum total of who we are. We are a Constitutional Republic (big difference).

Second, we were founded on Christian principles. This was the entire reason the early settlers came here–to escape what they saw as an oppressive religion. They wanted freedom of religion, to practice what and how they wanted.

For the record, freedom of religion is a lot different than freedom from religion, which the author of the article seems to forget. Freedom of religion and separation of church and state do not mean “erase Christianity from the history books, current events, and make fun of everyone who calls themselves a Christian.” Moreover, neither the Constitution nor the Amendments actually use the phrase “separation of church and state,” as the members of the “there is no God” crowd like to say.

The First Amendment states (emphasis mine):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Separation of church and state is simply Thomas Jefferson’s view of the first amendment. And he should know because he wrote it.

When following the links in the article to see exactly what was going on down there in Texas, I was able to see that the hullabaloo is actually all about the Texas public charter school system. Slate outlines the nightmare here:

When public-school students enrolled in Texas’ largest charter program open their biology workbooks, they will read that the fossil record is “sketchy.” That evolution is “dogma” and an “unproved theory” with no experimental basis. They will be told that leading scientists dispute the mechanisms of evolution and the age of the Earth. These are all lies.

Well, now. As much as Darwinist’s love to tell you that the Earth is absolutely millions of years old and that evolution is a complete truth, many other Christians and I (including open minded folks who don’t falsely claim to know everything) tend to disagree.

Look it up…there is absolutely no solid evidence for evolution. None. There are a lot of “theories” masquerading as truth, but no proof. Same with Global Warming. Which brings me to the Next Generation Science Standards that rely heavily on “climate change,” in the presentation of science material to elementary and secondary education.

Of course we can’t talk about the NGSS without circling back to my favorite topic; the Common Core Standards. For those who are new to the Common Core discussion, we’re talking about the standards that the federal government and their big business friends are pushing into virtually every state in the country. They tried to foist it on Texas but Texas woke up before it was too late and booted them out. Of course, to keep their NCLB waivers they still have to meet standards that look exactly like the Common Core, so is it really gone? Another article altogether.

Although Texas may have always, in the past, lead the country in informing which text books were used in classrooms all across the continent, it is not so anymore.

The textbook companies certainly don’t need the weight and number of books that Texas ordered when every other state is mandated to follow the standards, which will dictate the curriculum and text books. They’ve hit the jackpot on that one. (Next time you run into a Pearson executive, congratulate them on their crony-capitalism partnership!) So, in short, while Texas may still be trying to hold on to the truth of Christianity and trying to “sneak” the plain fact that Christianity was and is part of American history into the school system, it amounts to a big fat zero, practically, on the impact it will have on the rest of the U.S.

And this isn’t the place where skeptics should insert their shouts of, “You want the school children to be force fed the Bible at school!” This is actually the place where I am saying that most Christians don’t necessarily want the Bible to be taught in public schools. We simply don’t want the huge role that Christianity has played in making this nation to be ignored, chastised, ridiculed, and pooh-poohed.

In fact, people who wish to see both sides of the argument and want their children to really learn to think critically may want to move to Texas or push for text books that represent more than one side of the debate in their own states. Perhaps the children, who are a lot smarter than some folks think and who are fiercely independent thinkers, may read the textbook and see there is more research to be done. And then, novelty of novelties, they may come to their own conclusion. I know this is completely against what the Common Core or the educrats want.

They may even be able to read the beloved Corrie ten Boom books that they tried to ban in Temecula, CA, along with any other book written by a Christian. You know, books that show the kindness and compassion Christians are capable of and how, in some cases, they have made the world a better place.

I’m assuming the writer of the Slate article simply has never heard of the Common Core, in which case you really have to question the validity of the article. Who writes about education without mentioning the biggest reform to hit American public schools since…well, since Texas’s own George W. Bush committed educational malpractice with No Child Left Behind?

As for my fellow PolitiChicks and I, we prefer to read news from credible sites that will show both sides of the story or at least be as fair and balanced as possible. No, that wasn’t a shout out to Fox news. But really, what credibility can one expect from a site that doesn’t know how to present both sides of a story?

After all, according to Salon, there can be no such thing as a conservative feminist like myself and my PolitiChicks. If you’re not someone who happens to look like they combed their hair with a greasy pork chop and pound the abortion drum, you must hate women and want to drive them back to the stone-age. You know…back about a million years ago when monkeys finally evolved into rudimentary humans.