Archives for : Education

Owasso School Board Election 2-14-2023 – Vote for Vincent Donaldson

Posted by :webmaster On : February 13, 2023
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Category: Archives, Education, Government

For Those of you in the Owasso School District, it is very important that you vote in tomorrow’s election! If you are a Christian and/or a support of the nation’s founding Christian values of morality, you should vote for Vincent Donaldson.

School board elections have a low voter turnout. This means your vote carries a lot of weight. The following Voter Guide was supplied by Chris Wills [chris@votebible.com]:

VINCENT DONALDSON – OUR PICK

Vincent believes our school board needs an overhaul. He upholds biblical values and desires to bring morality back int our school systems. Transparency and accountability are extremely important to him.

NEAL KESSLER

Neal has served on the owasso School Board for the past five years. The current board lacks transparency with its decisions. Neal voted unanimously with the rest of the board to ban a concerned parent from the campus. The parent wanted pornographic material removed from the school library. The case went to court, where the judge ruled for the parent and his right of free speech.

KRISTY MOON

Kristy agrees that our school board needs to be transparent and accountable for its actions. At the same time, she believes teachers should be able to choose and create their own curriculum instead of being decided by the school board. She does not believe our nation's founding Christian values of morality are necessary.

—————————————–

If you want to know more about the about the issues and occurrences surrounding the pornography found in the Owasso Public Schools' library, please read my two articles by clicking the following links:

Pornography in Owasso Public Schools – Will local churches remain silent? https://anvilhousebooks.com/2022/11/08/pornography-in-owasso-public-schools-silence-of-the-local-churches/

Pornography in Owasso Public Schools – How it happened and what is being done about it https://anvilhousebooks.com/2022/12/17/pornography-in-owasso-public-schools-how-it-happened-and-what-is-being-done-about-it/

Larry G. Johnson
​

Pornography in Owasso Public Schools – How it happened and what is being done about it

Posted by :webmaster On : December 17, 2022
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Category: Archives, Culture Wars, Education

This is the second article on pornography in the Owasso Public Schools. The first article may be found at CultureWarrior.net website: “Pornography in Owasso Public Schools – Will local churches remain silent?”[1]

Events leading up to Owasso Public Schools change in library policies that deal with pornography

The story began when a Tim Reiland opened a book his 14-year old daughter had randomly checked out from the Owasso Public Schools library. He discovered its contents were blatantly pornographic and lodged a complaint about the offending book with school officials. Reiland attended a school board meeting on October 10th and spoke at the meeting with hope that the board would establish a district policy that addressed his concerns about pornographic materials in the school’s libraries. The board did not establish a policy with regard to the presence of pornographic materials. Reiland was subsequently banned from all Owasso Public Schools’ grounds following his contact with a board member in the parking lot following the meeting. On October 17, 2022, KTUL Channel 8 aired a story about Reiland’s banishment because of his efforts to have the graphic novel removed from the school library.[2]

Reiland obtained legal counsel, and on November 1st, U.S. District Judge John F. Heil issued a temporary restraining order that prevented the Owasso school district from barring Reiland’s access to the campus. Heil wrote, “While it is true that injunctive relief is an extraordinary relief, this Court finds that the First Amendment is an extraordinary right, deserving of extraordinary relief.”[3]

The Owasso school board subsequently met on November 9th and altered Reiland’s ban so it was no longer tied to his interaction with board member Brent England. Instead, the ban was kept in place because of Reiland’s interaction in the parking lot with Art Haddaway of the Owasso Reporter. Subsequently on November 14th, Judge Heil converted the restraining order to a temporary injunction that prevented Owasso Public Schools’ efforts to ban the Reiland from attending school board meetings, dropping off and picking up his children from school, and attending parent-teacher conferences and other extracurricular activities. The judge noted that it “is clear” that Owasso’s ban was “substantially motivated as a response to Plaintiff’s criticism of the Board’s decision and his petition for a redress of grievances” which is protected under the First Amendment.[4]

On that same Monday night, November 14, 2022, the Owasso School Board unanimously approved an update of the school’s library policy and specifically addressed the presence of pornographic books and other associated materials found in the school library. A copy of this policy may be found on the Owasso Public Schools website.[5]

The OPS Board is to be commended for its changes to the School Library Book Selection Policy #1.86 [6]

1. The opening paragraph of the amended policy includes the following statements:

The library media program shall be reflective of the community standards for the population the library media center serves when acquiring an age appropriate collection of print materials, non-print materials, multimedia resources, equipment and supplies…All students shall have access to age appropriate material from any collection in the district, however parents or legal guardians shall have the right to restrict access to library materials for their student(s). [emphasis added]

2. Just as important as the additions may be, the deletions are often just as important.
The following are representative of the deletions:

• Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be prescribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

If continued, this deleted policy statement would have allowed the inclusion of materials promoting Marxism, socialism, critical race theory, and sexualization of children through the radical LGBTQ+ agenda, all of which do not reflect the “community standards for the population the library media center serves.”

• Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

If continued, this deleted policy statement would have allowed OPS administrators to continue to allow pornographic materials in OPS libraries. Likewise, if a state law passed in 2021 had not prohibited teaching and promotion of critical race theory, this policy would have allowed OPS administrators to challenge those who wished to prohibit teaching and promotion of critical race theory (including library and classroom books and materials).

• Materials shall be selected in accordance with the principles established by the School Library Bill of Rights as approved by the American Association of School Libraries. The American Association of School Librarians affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic ideals should guide their services…

The removal of this policy statement effectively replaces the selection principles of the American Association of School Librarians with selections reflective of local community standards. It is highly doubtful that the leadership of any national secondary or university-level education association or organization reflects the community standards of parents and citizens of Owasso, Oklahoma. For decades academia in America at all levels have been indoctrinated with a liberal-progressive-socialist worldview by the vast majority of American colleges and universities which stands in stark contrast to the Judeo-Christian values and worldview of most Americans.

3. The Criteria for OPS’s School Book Selection Policy #1.86 include two
commendable changes:

Paragraph 2. As school library media center resources are finite, the library media program shall be reflective of the community standards for the population the library media center serves when acquiring an age appropriate collection of print materials, non-print materials, multimedia resources, equipment and supplies… [emphasis added]

Paragraph 5. Materials are selected for validity, currency, and appropriateness of content. This includes an inspection of every graphic novel, prior to placing in the collection, for potential material involving sexually explicit content and extreme vulgarity. [emphasis added]

Significant Problem remains with OPS Policy #1.86 as amended 11-14-2022

The problem with OPS Policy #1.86 as amended resides with the person(s) charged with the Responsibility for Selection. Those responsible for book and materials selection remain unchanged. The board of education is the governing body of the school district and is legally responsible for selection of instructional materials including library books and materials. This authority is delegated to the professional personnel of the district for the selection of these books and materials. The policy states that the books and materials for the library are primarily selected by the Library Media Specialist with input from the Selection Review Committee composed of a minimum of three certified staff members which may include the Library Media Specialist, principal, counselor, and classroom teachers(s).[7]

Yet, these are the same people charged with selecting or rejecting library and classroom books and materials under the prior policy that now must select books and materials that reflect community standards (discerning, understanding, and interpreting the community’s values, moral standards, and worldview).

Although the board and professional personnel may or may not personally approve of pornographic material, nevertheless, they allowed significant amounts of pornographic materials to be available to Owasso students. One wonders how many years has this been happening. The enormity of their malfeasance becomes clear when the perniciousness of pornography is understood. Pornography is widely defined as depicting erotic behavior and intended to cause sexual excitement, and is morally reprehensible, offensive, and insidious. Pornography distorts a child’s understanding of healthy human relationships.

Establishment of a Community/Parent Oversight Committee to interact with the OPS Selection Review Committee with regard library and classroom books and materials

The policy continues to state that, “However, no stakeholder has the right to determine the reading material for students other than his/her own children.”[8] Here, stakeholder implies parents of children at OPS. However, given the reference to community standards, the stakeholders must include members of the local community at large.

The only means to insure that pornography does not creep back into the libraries of Owasso Public Schools over time is to establish an oversight committee comprised of parents and community members. Representatives of this committee would interact with the school’s Selection Review Committee. The structural and operational parameters of such oversight committee have been successfully developed and implemented in many other school districts across the nation.

• The Parent/Community Committee will review all books and materials presented to the Selection and Review Committee and make comments and recommendations.
• Although the Parent/Community committee may not always agree with the decisions of the Book Selection Committee, in some cases of significant disagreement, the Parent/Community Committee may appeal to the Superintendent and subsequently, if necessary, to the Board of Education.
• The Parent/Community Committee should be allowed to annually examine the books and materials available to students in the OPS libraries.

An election to select a representative for Owasso School Board Office No. 3 will be held on February 14, 2023. Three candidates are running to fill the position that has a five-year term of office: Vincent Donaldson, Neal Kessler (incumbent), and Kristy Moon.[9] All voters in that ward are encouraged to examine the candidates qualifications, views, and especially their position with regard to recent events surrounding the pornography in OPS libraries. Each candidate should be asked if he/she will support the establishment of a Parent/Community Book Selection Committee to have input and a degree of oversight in selection of books and materials for OPS libraries and classrooms that reflect community standards.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:
[1] Larry G. Johnson, “Pornography in Owasso Public Schools – Will local churches remain silent,” culturewarrior.net, 11-08-2022. https://anvilhousebooks.com/2022/11/08/pornography-in-owasso-public-schools-silence-of-the-local-churches/
[2]Burt Mummolo, “Owasso parent banned from school grounds after asking for pornographic book to be removed,”
KTUL Channel 8, October 17, 2022, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/owasso-parent-banned-from-school-grounds-after-asking-for-pornographic-book-to-be-removed/ar-AA134R0f
[3] Ray Carter, “Court prevents Owasso school from banning parent critic,” Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs,November 2, 2022, https://www.ocpathink.org/post/court-prevents-owasso-school-from-banning-parent-critic
[4] Ray Carter, “Parent reaps second court victory against Owasso schools,” Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, November 15, 2022, https://www.ocpathink.org/post/parent-reaps-second-court-victory-against-owasso-schools
[5] Owasso Board of Education Regular Meeting, November 14, 2022 at 6:30 PM – Attachment to Agenda item VII.D. Selection of Library materials Policy #1.86 (4), https://meeting.assemblemeetings.com/Public/Agenda/601?meeting=537856
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] “Tulsa County Municipal and School Board filings,” Tulsa Beacon, December 15, 2022, 1.

Pornography in Owasso Public Schools – Will local churches remain silent?

Posted by :webmaster On : November 8, 2022
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Category: American Church, Archives, Culture Wars, Education

On October 17, 2022, KTUL Channel 8 aired a story about an Owasso parent’s efforts to have a graphic novel removed from the school library. The book had been randomly checked out by his 14-year-old daughter. The parent described what he found in the book.

There was children with their penises showing that were urinating in each other’s faces. There was scenes, and this is graphic, images of ejaculation. There are scenes of teen sex. There are also scenes of a child, a child being raped in the book, and all in graphic depiction.[1]

The parent stated that when he first told school officials about it, they didn’t pay him much mind until he brought copies of the pages to the assistant superintendent who then, he says, pulled the book for review. The parent stated that he was very happy with that and thanked him and sent emails thanking them.[2]

The parent then attended a school board meeting on October 10, hoping the district would establish a policy that addressed his concerns about pornographic materials in the school. Apparently other parents in attendance voiced similar concerns to the board as well. According to the parent, those wanting pornographic materials removed from the school were accused of “just trying to ban books or burn books” in spite the parents claims that they were just trying to protect their children from pornography. In spite of their efforts, the board took no action to address a policy change on what books would be allowed in the school.[3]

After the meeting the parent spoke to school board member Brent England in the parking lot about the concerns of the parents. Within three or four days after the meeting the parent received a letter from Owasso School Superintendent Margaret Coates informing him that he had “committed one or more acts” that interfered “with the peaceful activities on District property.” Specifically, the letter stated, “You are hereby directed to leave the Owasso Public Schools and all of its grounds including sports events, sports venues, and not return.” The Channel 8 news reporter asked the parent if he could pick up his kids. The parent responded that, “I cannot pick up my children without written permission from Margaret Coates. It feels very retaliatory.”[4]

Subsequently, U.S. District Judge John Heil issued a temporary injunction that prevents Owasso Public Schools’ efforts to ban the parent from attending school board meetings, dropping off and picking up his children from school, and attending parent-teacher conferences and other extracurricular activities. The judge noted that it “is clear” that Owasso’s ban was “substantially motivated as a response to Plaintiff’s criticism of the Board’s decision and his petition for a redress of grievances” which is protected under the First Amendment.[5]

Pornography in Oklahoma’s K-12 schools is widespread and deeply embedded

Owasso Public Schools is not the only school system that has been found to have pornography in its libraries and classrooms. The State Board of Education recently voted to sanction Tulsa Public Schools, Oklahoma’s second largest district, by significantly reducing its accreditation status to “accreditation with warning” for violating the provisions of House Bill 1775 passed by the Oklahoma legislature in 2021. HB 1775 prohibits the promotion or teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in Oklahoma K-12 classrooms. The recent vote to sanction Tulsa Public Schools for violation of HB 1775 occurred the same week that the Twitter account, Libs of Tik Tok, highlighted two books available to Tulsa students in the school library—“Gender Queer” and “Flamer.” The Twitter account reported that the books contain sexually explicit and pornographic content. When the sexually-explicit images from the books were posted on Facebook, the tech giant quickly shut down the post citing its graphic content.[6]

Oklahoma Senate Pro Tempore Greg Treat, called the news “appalling and nothing short of deplorable.” Further, he stated,

It is indefensible to have children exposed to images and material that is the definition of pornography. It makes no difference whether its same sex, opposing sex, or anything in between, children should never be able to view the images in a public school sanctioned library setting.[7]

State Representative Sherrie Conley, a former teacher and school administrator, warned that “materials such as these are not just in Tulsa Public schools but in other school libraries throughout the state.”[8]

Owasso is just one of many school boards across the nation that has tried to prevent parents and other critics from participating in school policy actions and decisions. Although present for years, these efforts significantly increased in 2021 with school administrators’ inclusion of critical race theory in classroom instruction. The National Association of School Boards in a letter to the Biden administration sought to label parental resistance as being equivalent to “a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes” and requested that federal law enforcement officials investigate protestors under federal anti-terrorism and hate—crimes laws. This was quickly followed by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memorandum to the FBI to meet with state and local officials to develop “strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” Many state school boards associations across the nation denounced the NSBA’s actions and announced their departure from the NSBA. However, the Oklahoma State School Boards Association has never publicly denounced NSBA’s action and has continued its affiliation with the group.[9]

Pornography is just one of several weapons used by the purveyors of the liberal-woke-Marxist agenda aimed at the overt sexualization of elementary and secondary school children throughout the nation. In addition to inclusion of pornographic materials in libraries and classrooms, this overt and well-organized sexualization process includes legitimization and promotion of the LGBTQ philosophy and lifestyle. The LGBTQ agenda for K-12 schools includes promotion and use of cross-sex hormones, surgical procedures, and puberty blockers, all based on their perceived gender identity. Parents of K-12 students must be on constant alert for these and a host of other issues that have infiltrated many public school systems such as Marxist/socialist indoctrination and criteria race theory.

How can local communities once again gain control of their local schools boards and administrators?

The first step is to elect school board members who respect and reflect the Judeo-Christian values and morals upon which the nation was founded. But when the local school boards actions or lack thereof no longer represent or reflect those values and morals, the parents and local citizenry have a powerful voice residing in almost every community. This powerful group is comprised of the local churches which means, first and foremost the pastor, followed by their staff and board of deacons, and backed by the congregations.

Unfortunately, the voice of the church in America became silent during the last half of the 20th century as most pastors and their churches have substantially ceased to speak into and influence their community beyond the walls of the church. For several decades the silence of the church has extended far beyond silence about local affairs. This is the foremost cause of the nation’s moral, social, political, and cultural turmoil and decline. It appears this failure to speak into the various spheres of American life has infiltrated into a large majority of Owasso’s churches.

“Silence in the face of evil is evil itself. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.”

Many believe the above quote originated with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the World War II German pastor who resisted the Nazis and was martyred on the direct order of Adolf Hitler at the end of the war in 1945. Although not directly attributable to Bonhoeffer, “it so well sums up what he desperately tried to communicate to those who believed they could safely stand on the sidelines in the battle of that time.”[10]

If we are not actively living out our faith by fighting the wickedness in society and the culture of our time (in the schools, government, business, popular culture, arts, entertainment, media, and so forth), God will view our inaction (neutrality) as participation in the enemy’s wicked cause. In other words, God will not find us guiltless. Here we speak of collective and individual guilt.

Eric Metaxas in his new book, Letter to the American Church, captures the essence of how the church has become silent in the face of evil.

…those who behave as though there is really nothing to worry about, who seem to think—as such prominent pastors as Andy Stanley and others do—that we ought to assiduously avoid fighting these threats and be “apolitical” are tragically mistaken, are burying their heads in the sand and exhorting others to do the same …Do we not realize that no good ever can come of such silence and inaction, that human beings whom God loves suffer when His own people fail to express boldly what He has said and why they fail to live as He has called them to live?[11]

Such silence has led American schools to where they are today.

The very youngest of children in schools are being fed pernicious ideas on the subject of sexuality—ideas with which their young minds are quite unable to cope, and to which their own parents object. Older children are being so confused by sexual activists that they agree to have their bodies mutilated, so they can never become the men and women God has created them to be.[12]

We cannot help but wonder where are all of the leading American pastors today on the issues of sexuality and transgender craziness. Are they afraid to speak? Like lemmings, it appears that local pastors across the nation have also lost their voices and backbones as well. The question I have for Owasso pastors is this, have you regularly spoken to your congregations about these issues? God calls us to speak truth to power. John the Baptist spoke truth to Herod, and it cost him his head. Jesus spoke truth to the religious leaders of his day knowing they would bring about His crucifixion.

Plan of action for Owasso pastors

Pastors must organize, speak, and act for Owasso’s K-12 students who are unable to defend them themselves from the vicious attacks from the enemy of our souls.

1. Preach frequently and frankly to your congregations with passion fired by the Holy Spirit about the evils of pornography, the LGBTQ agenda, Marxism and socialism, and other evils facing our children in the public schools?

2. Pastors should deliver formal notifications of their churches’ opposition to any policies and practices that allow, tolerate, or encourage the presence of pornographic materials in Owasso Public Schools. This document should be signed by the pastor and every congregational member willing to do so and delivered to the Owasso School Board and Superintendent.

3. Encourage like-minded pastors willing to break their silence to come together as a group and attend an Owasso School Board with spokespersons prepared to demand changes to school’s policies and practices that would eradicate pornographic materials from K-12 classrooms and libraries, both now and in the future.

4. Using both social and print media, the Owasso ministerial alliance should publicly addressed the dangers of pornography and other philosophies and practices that promote sexualization of our children in public schools.

Removal of pornography from Owasso Pubic Schools is just one tiny skirmish in the culture wars. Fellow Christians and other defenders of the Judeo-Christian worldview are called to soldier in a much larger ongoing conflict which I described eight years ago in my book Evangelical Winter – Restoring New Testament Christianity.

Apart from the apostate church, there is also a faithful but mostly silent church in America that is content to preach the gospel and ignore the culture. Erwin Lutzer wrote, “whether in Nazi German or America, believers cannot choose to remain silent under the guise of preaching the Gospel…we must live out the implications of the cross in every area of our lives. We must be prepared to submit to the Lordship of Christ in all ‘spheres’.” Yet, as we live out the implications of the cross in every area of our lives, we must understand that the culture wars in which we soldier for Christ are not about maintaining the American dream however one may define it. Rather, the culture wars are about restoring the biblical understanding of truth in all spheres of our national life. To do so one must speak the truth in the face of lies, stand on biblical principles when others compromise, and take right actions in spite of consequences.[13]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:
[1] Burt Mummolo, “Owasso parent banned from school grounds after asking for pornographic book to be removed,”
KTUL Channel 8, October 17, 2022, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/owasso-parent-banned-from-school-grounds-after-asking-for-pornographic-book-to-be-removed/ar-AA134R0f
The video version of this telecast may be viewed at: https://ktul.com/news/local/owasso-parent-banned-from-school-grounds-after-asking-for-poronographic-book-to-be-removed
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ray Carter, “Court prevents Owasso school from banning parent critic,” Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs,
November 2, 2022, https://www.ocpathink.org/post/court-prevents-owasso-school-from-banning-parent-critic
[6] Ray Carter, “Concerns over racism, porn lead to Tulsa school sanction,” Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs,
July 28, 2022, https://www.ocpathink.org/post/concerns-over-racism-porn-lead-to-tulsa-school-sanction
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church, (Washington, D.C.: Salem Books, 2022), p. 51.
[11] Ibid, pp. xiii, 51.
[12] Ibid, p. 84.
[13] Larry G. Johnson, Evangelical Winter – Restoring New Testament Christianity, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House
Publishing, 2016) p. 265.

Helicopter government – Part III – Overpraising

Posted by :webmaster On : June 12, 2015
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Category: Archives, Education, Government, Humanism

This series of articles describes helicopter parenting and helicopter governing, the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture. A helicopter government is one that exhibits characteristics similar to those of helicopter parenting which are expressed in four types of behavior: overprotection, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. In Part III we shall examine the consequences of a culture of overpraising encouraged by the indirect but pervasive influence of our helicopter government and the American educational system. The obsessive, destructive, and faulty efforts of the educational establishment to build child self-esteem at any cost has enabled a culture of overpraising resulting in pathologies and consequences harmful to children, adults, and the culture at large.

Overpraising

To understand the emphasis on self-esteem we must look at the development of a new view of self in America following World War II. Alan Petigny summarized the seismic change in the view of self as, “…a rejection of the belief in the innate depravity of mankind, the celebration of spontaneity, and a pronounced turn toward self-awareness…[This] gave rise—on an unprecedented scale—to a more secularized notion of the individual.” From this humanistic view of self came a belief in the basic goodness of man and a rejection of Original Sin; loosened behavioral codes that allowed one to get in touch with one’s true self rather than discover truth as defined by tradition, scripture, natural law, and other authoritarian sources; and a preference for self-expression as opposed to self-discipline. Rejecting the external, there was a decided inward turn to discover one’s guiding principles and the meaning of life. In the 1950s this process of getting in touch with one’s self was called self-actualization in which answers to the big questions of life come from within and can only be found by trusting one’s own reactions and doing “what feels right.”[1]

However, the self must not only be actualized but must be made to feel good about it. Dr. Robert Hudson believes that the whole “overprotection racket” with regard to children began with a popular fad of the 1980s in which a child’s self-esteem was built through giving them a multitude of choices.[2] Through the efforts of the American educational system and complicit parents, this process of self-actualization or getting in touch with one’s true self, co-joined with building self-esteem, begins in the earliest preschool years and continues through all primary and secondary levels and into adulthood at the university level. So many hours are spent by educators on building self-esteem that teaching skills and knowledge are neglected which is one of the major reasons for the dismal condition of American education, the most humanistically-indoctrinated institution in American life.

The problem of overpraising children and efforts to build high self-esteem are fundamentally linked to humanism’s false assumption of the basic goodness of man. The root of the problem of overpraising children lies in the mistaken belief that achievement follows self-esteem rather than self-esteem as a result of achievement.[3] Here we must distinguish between overpraising children and that of expressions of love and affirmation that all children need. Although we must not put love, affirmation, and encouragement of a child on a praise-as-you-achieve basis, we must be careful to not persistently build up within a child a false understanding of the source and value of his or her self-worth and abilities through overpraising. Overpraised children are being setup for disappointment and failure in their adult years because they were never taught how to cope with failure and disappointment in their formative years. And the consequences of those lessons denied in the childhood years are far more painful, longer-term, and costly in the adult years and radiate outward to family, friends, and society in general.

So what does all this overpraising of children have to do with a helicopter government? The emphasis on high self-esteem for children has effectively robbed them of those learning and coping experiences (especially bad experiences) in their growing up years. The effect for many is to Extend childhood forever.[4] These adults living in perpetual childhood often become wards of the state. And our helicopter government is always ready to swoop in and minister to the wounded self-esteem of those individuals or groups who feel themselves slighted, offended, insulted, or snubbed. In other words, the feelings of these pseudo-adults have been hurt, and the government must punish the perpetrators.

Professor John Portmann, professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, believes that the quest for high esteem in children is damaging the whole fabric of society. Marano quotes Portmann who

…sees young people becoming weaker right before his eyes, more responsive to the herd, too eager to fit in—not just less assertive in the classroom, but unwilling to disagree with their peers, afraid to question authority, more willing to conform to the expectations of those on the next rung of power above them.[5]

Children raised on the pacifier of high self-esteem disconnected from reality become weakened adults living in an extended childhood. These overpraised, self-actualized adults continually in need of a self-esteem fix attempt to find their value and worth from within but are constantly demoralized by the external world’s failure to affirm their inner vision of themselves. Their dismay and distress is a result of the humanistic worldview’s false understanding of the source of a person’s value and leads to an attack on the biblical view of man which is really an attack on his true dignity and worth.

Richard M. Weaver has identified the steps in the progressive demotion of man in modern society while he unsuccessfully attempts at the same time to elevate himself through humanism’s false measures of self-worth.[6] The author has previously written of Weaver’s analysis of modern man’s confusion as he struggles to understand why humanistic concepts of his worth do not bring satisfaction.

First, astronomers in the last half millennium have discovered that the earth is but a mere speck on the fringes of a vast universe. Because the earth is physically “insignificant” in relation to the totality, it is implied that man is also insignificant. As reasoning goes, the creator must have little concern for insignificant man…

Darwin’s theory of the descent of man was the second means of depreciating the worth of man. No longer the center of creation, he was robbed of his special origins, the divine spark snuffed out, and was now counted among the animal kingdom sharing a common ancestry with other creatures that struggled out of the primeval ooze and late of the anthropoid clan…

The third assault on biblical individualism occurred when man was robbed of his freewill, and his actions are now explained by material causality. He is now brute beast, a slave to animal passions, and those actions can be predicted and explained (or will be at some future point after enough study) by materialistic determinism… [7]

Humanists speak eloquently of the individual, his dignity, his worth, and his freedom to choose. They promise a freedom from the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past by which humanity has achieved a measure of civilization. However, it is a false freedom that gives unbridled control to the self and senses and ultimately leads to bondage. For all of man’s time on this earth this personal license has been the path toward disaster. To believe that such personal freedom will lead to the greater good of mankind is folly for man is a fallen creature, and he cannot lift himself by pulling at his own bootstraps.[8] And no amount of societal or self-generated esteem will fix fallen and unregenerate man.

In the humanistic worldview, the praise of self is a relentless chorus and signals the retreat from relationship and unity. This humanistic emphases on self and its consequent conceits and egotism are systemic poisons leading to fragmentation of culture through redefinition and radicalization of various concepts such as egalitarianism, multiculturalism, tolerance, feminism, and diversity. Such fragmentation of culture leads to cultural decline and disintegration because of the loss of a unifying central cultural vision.

In the Christian worldview, value or worth of a person is not dependent on what that person or someone else thinks of him. Man’s worth has been pre-determined by our Creator, and that worth is inestimably great. God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity. Being God, He knew the course and cost of His creation. Rejection was not a surprise to an omniscient God. Before creation, God knew the cost of the regeneration of man would be the death of His Son, and this is hinted at in Revelation 13:8, “…Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” God’s infinite love exceeded the cost of that love at Calvary.[9] To compare the value humanism places on self-actualized and highly self-esteemed man with the value God places on His special creation is to compare ashes with gold dust.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Alan Petigny, The Permissive Society – America, 1941-1965, (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 226, 238-239.
[2] Jason Ashley Wright, “Nurturing in Excess,” Tulsa World, March 24, 2014, D1.
[3] Robert Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, (New York: Regan Books, 1996), p. 243.
[4] Hara Estroff Marano, “A Nation of Wimps,” Psychology Today, November 1, 2004.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/nation-wimps (accessed March 31, 2014);
Hara Estroff Marano, A Nation of Wimps, (New York: Broadway Books,2009), pp. 243-244.
[5] Marano, “A Nation of wimps,” Psychology Today.
[6] Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006), pp. 136-145. Originally published by Louisiana State University, 1964.
[7] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 222-223.
[8] Ibid., pp. 220, 221-222.
[9] Ibid., p. 158.

Progressive view of American history: The good old days were all bad.

Posted by :webmaster On : October 31, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Education, Progressivism, Truth

There seems to be few things that are exempt from the battlefields of the culture wars. The latest casualty is history…you know, the stuff that is learned in high school or at least what people used to learn in high school. But the history lessons taught in American schools for 200 years following the founding has been dumped by the education establishment in recent years. American history is no longer the grand story of American culture since the arrival of the first Europeans but has become a tool to promote the liberal political/cultural agenda. The nation’s history recorded by each generation’s citizens and eye-witness historians is an accurate record of America’s story. But now we have the latest two or three generations which claim the five hundred years of American history recorded by thousands of historians over the period is distorted and not reflective of the real story. Therefore, it must be trashed and replaced by a revised interpretation of history consistent with the current enlightened understanding of what really happened.

This approach to history is not new for it has been around since the early 1800s. It is called the Whig theory of history and is also known as the Progressive theory of history. This theory rests on the belief that the most advanced point in time represents the point of highest development. It assumes “…that history is an inevitable march upward into the light. In other words, step by step, the world always progresses, and this progress is inevitable.” [1] Thus, the historical record must be judged only in light of current beliefs, assumptions, and politics, all devoid of timeless truths, wisdom accumulated through the ages, tradition, and heritage. The roots of the Whig theory reach back to the humanistic concept of human perfectibility of the French philosophers which arose during the Age of Enlightenment during the eighteenth century. Known as progressivism, the theory contradicts the Christian view of man as having a fallen nature.

The progressive theory of history is alive and well in the twenty-first century halls of academia and the organizations that serve its needs. One of those organizations is the College Board whose membership is comprised of 6,000 institutions of higher education. Its mission is to expand access to higher education by helping students to achieve college readiness and college success through such programs as the SAT and the Advanced Placement Program. The organization also acts in areas of research and advocacy for the education community. [2] It is in the College Board’s new Advance Placement course in history that dramatically advances the progressive view of history and which has caused considerable concern to many including the Texas State Board of Education and the Republican National Committee as well as some of the more conservative members of the Golden, Colorado school board.

The school board wants to review the College Board’s Advanced Placement U.S. history course which they believe contains significant anti-American content. The school board proposed to establish a committee to review texts and course plans to assure the course materials were balanced and “promote more citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights” and “don’t encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard for the law.” [3]

Now, who could argue with teaching that promotes a good citizenship and patriotism in a well-ordered and lawful society? Well, hundreds of students, parents, and teachers are bothered by such radical ideas and have been protesting the school board’s planned review for weeks. The protesters claim the board is attempting to change the course content to suit their views (what about the views of the people that elected them?). The College Board’s Advanced Placement history course content being taught for the first time this school year “gives greater attention to the history of North American and its native people before colonization and their clashes with Europeans, but critics say it downplays the settlers’ success in establishing a new nation.” The College Board stated that the course was built “around themes like ‘politics and power’ and ‘environment and geography’.” However, what is missing from the course framework is as significant as that which is included. For example, Martin Luther King isn’t mentioned, but the Black Panthers are. The Board explained that the content was not to be considered exhaustive, but one New Jersey teacher cut to the heart of the College Board’s unspoken agenda. He argues that the course “…has a global, revisionist view” and “depicts the U.S. as going from conquering Native Americans to becoming an imperial power, while downplaying examples of cooperation and unity.” [4]

To a large extent, Americans are a people that are ignorant of their history. Because they don’t know where they came from, they are unaware of the dangers into which the dominant humanistic worldview is leading America. This was not always so, and it has occurred by design and not by accident or neglect. The teaching of history falls within the sphere of education, and education has been in the hands of progressives for a hundred years. Of all of the institutions of life in America, the educational establishment is the one that is most saturated in the humanistic worldview which stands in direct opposition to the biblical worldview upon which the nation was founded.

The founder and architect of America’s progressive education was John Dewey who was bitterly hostile to Christianity and traditional Western thought. Dewey did not believe in the existence of God, supernatural religion, and life after death. Man was an evolutionary product and nature is all there is. The only thing that mattered was human self-realization through interaction with nature. On this foundation he built the progressive theory of education which emphasizes experience, observation, social responsibility, problem solving, and fitting in to society as opposed to centuries of traditional education by which is meant the acquisition of knowledge. [5] For progressives, the historical record holds little importance as a guide to the present and future unless it is used as the “horrible example” of America’s past sins for the purpose of leading ignorant citizens to surrender their values and freedom. From this denigration of American history, we see the obvious disconnect between progressive education and the traditional understanding of that history. If one holds the progressive view of history, the views of the present generation must be superior to those of past generations and by default superior to their concepts of timeless truths, ancestral wisdom, tradition, and heritage. In this denigration of America’s past, the progressive theories of education and history support and promote the larger all-encompassing philosophy of humanism which has been described in several earlier articles.

Ashley Maher is an eighteen year old Chatfield High School senior who helped organize the protests against the Golden school board’s plan to review the content of the Advance Placement history course. She assures that, “We are going to fight until we see some results.” [6] By “results,” it must be assumed she means that the school board’s desire to promote citizenship, patriotism, the free-market system, respect for authority, respect for individual rights, civil order, national unity, and respect for the law will be duly censored from any Advance Placement American history courses in Golden’s high schools. It would be interesting to hear Ms. Maher’s response to the question as to why her values and interpretation of American history are superior and should be taught while at the same time suppressing and/or misrepresenting the factual historical record about which she knows nothing. Following that moment of silence from Ms. Maher, it is also doubtful her parents or her Boomer grandparents peopling the picket lines could give a coherent, logical answer. Should they manage some sort of response, we counter with the words and actions of those eye-witnesses to American history: the Pilgrims and Puritans; colonial farmers and frontiersmen; Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, and the rest of the founding generations; Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the Abolitionists and Abraham Lincoln, the Doughboys of WWI and soldiers, sailors, and airmen of WWII, and millions of others who made America the greatest nation in the history of the world. For most modern-day Americans of the last three generations, it would be an answer they have not heard thanks to humanism’s revisionist view of American history and suppression of the historical record of our ancestors.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Murray N. Rothbard, “The Progressive Theory of History,” Ludwig von Mises Institute, September 14, 2010. http://mises.org/daily/4708 (accessed October 28, 2014).
[2] College Board, https://www.collegeboard.org/about (accessed October 14, 2014).
[3] Colleen Slevin, “Colorado board backs review of curriculum,” Tulsa World, October 3, 2014, A9.
[4] Colleen Slevin, “Critics slam school board over history course review,” Tulsa World, October 4, 2014, A4.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 23-24, 289-290
[6] Slevin, “Critics slam school board over history course review,” A4.

Connecting the dots: The homosexual agenda

Posted by :webmaster On : October 17, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Education, Equality, Homosexuality

For many Americans who have been clueless about the homosexual agenda and its ultimate goal for American culture, the rapidity of recent events has caused their understanding to become clearer as the relevant features of the agenda reveal the big picture. Much like connecting the dots on a child’s line art puzzle, Americans are increasingly able to connect the dots of the homosexual agenda as each event/demand/right is connected with a preceding event/demand/right until what was once a jumble of seemingly unrelated and innocuous platitudes, occurrences, demands, and actions becomes a recognizable and frightening reality.

One of the major tools for winning concessions for the homosexual agenda is the plea/demand/right for tolerance and equality as defined by humanism. The humanists would force all to bend their knees at the altar of tolerance and equality, but that altar requires bowing to the god of humanism and embracing the consequent moral relativism which provides no means for finding truth or judging something based on the concept of right and wrong. For those that fail to bow, they become the objects of intolerant harassment through restrictions on free speech (speech codes), coercion, intimidation, and loss of religious freedom.

Current examples of the sacrifice of religious freedom upon the altars of humanist tolerance are legion. One of the many is the effort to crush religious freedom at Gordon College, a 125 year old nationally ranked liberal arts Christian college with 1700 students located in Wenham, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. The college’s website states that it “…combines an exceptional education with an informed Christian faith.”[1] However, the college’s effort to fulfill its promise regarding the provision of an informed Christian faith has caused it to run afoul of the New England Association of schools and Colleges‘ Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. Gordon is being charged with potentially violating the standards of the accrediting agency because of Gordon’s longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, faculty, and staff, both on and off campus and its public opposition to hiring protections for gays and lesbians. Loss of accreditation typically results in loss of U.S. Department of Education federal financial aid for students which tends to be a death knell for colleges.[2]

Commission director Barbara Brittingham states that the commission has not dealt with a case involving potential sexual orientation-related discrimination but that, “It’s a matter of looking at the information we have and deciding if the institution is meeting our standards.”[3] [emphasis added] One wonders if the commission’s standards include consideration of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.

But that is not the end of the story. It seems that the tentacles of humanistic tolerance must reach into all levels of society to choke out perceived discrimination. The City of Salem now refuses to let Gordon use its city-owned Old Town Hall because of the college’s policies violate a municipal ordinance that prohibits Salem from contracting with entities that discriminate. The mayor of Salem was exceptionally sharp in his criticism of the college. “The clear message is that homosexuals are not worthy of employment, or even recognition of their existence, in the Gordon community. It is a slap in the face of every gay and lesbian person, particularly every gay and lesbian Christian, that says you are somehow less of a human being, you do not belong in the embrace of God’s merciful arms.”[4] Apparently, the mayor has never read the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans in which God condemns homosexual behavior.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth…Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves… [Romans 1:18, 24. RSV]

A planned White House executive order will bar federal contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation and include colleges such as Gordon whose students receive federal financial aid. Numerous Christian leaders have requested the President to include a religious exemption.[5] If an exemption is not allowed, Christian colleges and universities across the nation will be forced to accept students and hire teachers whose beliefs contradict the beliefs, mission, and goals of those institutions.

One Gordon graduate and subsequent employee left Gordon because he could not come out as openly gay. He subsequently formed GordonOne, an LGBT organization. He believes that Gordon’s president “has made Gordon a fortress of faith rather than a place where the doors are open to people who want to be part of a conversation about what it means to be a Christian.”[6] [emphasis added] It is apparent from this former student-employee’s comment that we must begin any conversation about what it means to be a Christian with three assumptions: the Bible is not the final authority on what it means to be Christian, the Bible’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality cannot be accepted, and the doors of Christianity are not open to homosexuals. Only after these suppositions and assumptions are accepted can the conversation begin. In other words, Gordon’s goal of providing an “informed Christian faith” is acceptable only after being sanitized by the LGBT community to meet their litmus test of tolerance and equality. To pass that test, Gordon must surrender beliefs in unchanging biblical truth and that it must accept practicing homosexuals as Christians.

Gordon is not the only one in the crosshairs of the homosexual agenda. No organization is too large or too small to be strangled by the tentacles of its intolerant agenda. We’ve heard of the woes of various cake bakers who, based on their religious beliefs, had the effrontery to refuse to bake cakes for homosexual weddings. Now we have the case of the Kentucky tee shirt decorator who refused to make tee shirts for participants in a local gay-pride parade. After two years, Lexington’s Human Rights Commission ruled that the tee shirt maker violated the city’s “fairness” ordinance and was ordered to attend “diversity training” for re-education. The commission’s Executive Director Raymond Sexton believes that Christians in the marketplace must “…leave their religion at home.” Otherwise, he warned, “you can find yourself two years down the road and you’re still involved in a legal battle because you did not do so. We’re not telling somehow how to feel with respect to religion, but the law is pretty clear that if you operate a business to the public, you need to provide your services to people regardless…”[7] [emphasis added] But the Human Rights Commission is telling someone how to feel with respect to their religion. That is the purpose of diversity training…to tell someone how they ought to feel and think.

As the dots are connected on the picture of the homosexual agenda in America, it becomes increasingly evident that it portrays the suppression and consequent eradication of Christianity from the public square in America. The first amendment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Religious beliefs and feelings translate into exercise thereof, and the Constitution protects not only religious feelings and beliefs but free exercise as well. Commissioner Sexton and others promoting the homosexual agenda would prohibit both.

In light of the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion, how can the President, the New England Commission on Higher Education, the City of Salem, the City of Lexington, and a legion of others sidestep the Constitution by requiring Christians to abandon the exercise of their most deeply held religious beliefs? They cannot unless we allow them to do so. If we allow the demagogues of humanistic tolerance and equality to prevail, then the free exercise of religion will mean little more than that which can be practiced behind the closed doors of a silent church or in the muzzled confines of one’s heart. This certainly cannot be the intent of the Founders.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Gordon College, http://www.gordon.edu/ (accessed October 8, 2013).
[2] Matt Rocheleau, “Accrediting agency to review Gordon College,” The Boston Globe, July 11, 2014.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/11/agency-review-whether-gordon-college-antigay-stance-policies-violate-accrediting-standards/Cti63s3A4cEHLGMPRQ5NyJ/story.html (accessed October 8, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Evan Allen, “Gordon College joins request for exemption to hiring rule,” The Boston Globe, July 4, 2014.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/03/gordon-college-president-signs-letter-asking-for-religious-exemption-from-order-banning-anti-gay-discrimination/79cgrbFOuUg7lxH2rKXOgO/story.html (accessed
October 13, 2014).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Tony Perkins, “Intolerance fits liberals to a T (Shirt),” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 9, 2014.
http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/intolerance-fits-liberals-to-a-t-shirt (accessed October 13, 2014).

Shake and Bake History – Engineering the future while forgetting the past

Posted by :webmaster On : August 1, 2014
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Category: Archives, Education, Progressivism, Worldview

Two recent syndicated newspaper columns contained two views of history that frame the two worldviews contending for dominance in the nation’s central cultural vision—humanism and Christianity. The first was written by David Turnoy, a retired elementary teacher and author.[1] Mr. Turnoy is a proponent of ‘honest” history of the warts and all variety with a strong emphasis on the warts. Turnoy’s article is peppered with numerous phrases descriptive of the humanistic worldview, and some of his quotes will help understand that worldview.

For any progressive student or observer of history, it is well-known that the United States has a mixed record in its treatment of Native Americans, African Americans, women and other groups, including some especially cruel treatment…So what information should be taught? Should it be the traditional bland summary showing America as always in the right, led by truly admirable heroes who bring about change while leaving out any negative actions, which leads to disinterested, unquestioning citizens who allow government and other elites to do as they like? Or should it be a more balanced, honest approach?…If we want a better country with more equality and justice, this is where it starts.[2] (emphasis added)

To summarize, it appears that Turnoy believes that traditional history lessons will be bland summaries if not focused on the negatives and therefore produce disinterested and unquestioning citizens who are unconcerned about equality and justice. Turnoy assumes his approach is more balanced and honest. We will examine how Turnoy’s “honest and balanced” approach really plays out in the American education system dominated by a humanistic worldview.

A contrary view is held by Daniel Burnett who believes that there has been a “…growing trend in historical illiteracy for years, and the culprit is our nation’s education system…it fails to prepare students with the knowledge they’ll need for informed citizenship.” Quoting various research studies on knowledge of history in America, Burnett reported that only five percent of the top fifty public universities in the U.S. required even one survey course on American history. Most college and university curricula require only niche courses to take the place of American history courses. He cites several examples: “Foundations of Rock,” “Human Sexuality,” “History of Avant-Garde Film,” and “America Through Baseball.” Burnett believes that the American education system has produced a population of illiterates and amnesiacs as it relates to the nation’s history.[3]

One must ask why there is such an aversion to teaching American history in primary and secondary schools and at colleges and universities. Turnoy argues that history teachers are not honest with regard to America’s failures. Burnett cites the educational system’s focus on niche courses and a failure to teach a comprehensive history of the nation. Both points of view are a result of the educational system’s dominant humanistic worldview and its aversion to the lessons of the past.

American education’s humanistic worldview

The American education system is extremely humanistic in its worldview, teaching, policies, practices, and course content. The great architect of engineering the future through education without a historical foundation was John Dewey. Dewey was “…recognized as the leader of the ‘progressive movement’ in education.”[4] (emphasis added) His educational philosophy, writings, and twenty-five years at Columbia University dramatically shaped the educational system in the U.S. from the early years of the twentieth century until the present day. His philosophy was centered on humanistic concepts of man with regard to his origins, purpose, and future. Dewey had a substantial disdain for historical influence, tradition, patrimony, and religion (particularly the Christian worldview), all of which were noticeably absent in his development of American education’s modern paradigm.[5] The progressive movement in education resulted in faculty hostility to the courses and fields of study that examine the traditional roots of Western civilization and American institutions. Turnoy’s sought after “honest and balanced” presentation of history has been cast aside in favor of indoctrinating American students with a humanistic worldview.

Humanism’s aversion to history

In the humanist worldview history is excess baggage that must be tossed to make way for new, bold, and progressive ideas. Therefore, humanists subscribe to the Whig theory of history which states that the most advanced point in time is the point of its highest development. This fits nicely with humanists’ progressivism whose foundation is the Enlightenment belief of the perfectibility of man, a “…belief that critical and autonomous human reason held the power to discover the truth about life and the world, and to progressively liberate humanity from the ignorance and injustices of the past.”[6] Those holding the humanistic worldview eliminate the traditional historical narrative of America unless that narrative can be sifted and parsed to present selected evidence of America’s supposed widespread historical inequality and injustice.

Rob Koons, a philosophy professor at the University of Texas, has called the modern American university’s array of unconnected courses the Uncurriculum. Koons describes the Uncurriculum as a smorgasbord approach to curriculum offerings whose design usually exhibits a general lack of required courses, structure, and systematic order in meeting core course requirements for liberal arts studies.[7] From such comes a citizenry that is profoundly illiterate with regard to America’s story and the reasons for its preeminence among the past and present nations of the world.

The story of America

America cannot be understood without a comprehensive historical narrative. Such a narrative reveals that America’s founding originated from a biblical worldview that runs through the history of Western civilization since its inception. One cannot understand America by substituting a shake and bake curriculum that substitutes courses such as “America Through Baseball” or “History of Avant-Garde Film” for traditional comprehensive history courses that present the matchless story of America.

Russell Kirk expressed the true ideal of education.

True education is meant to develop the individual human being, the person, rather than to serve the state. In all our talk about “serving national goals” and “citizenship education”—phrases that originated with John Dewey and his disciples—we tend to ignore the fact that schooling was not originated by the modern nation-state. Formal schooling actually commenced as an endeavor to acquaint the rising generation with religious knowledge: with awareness of the transcendent and with moral truths…to teach what it is to be a true human being.[8]

Writing of the humanistic view of education, Richard Weaver’s words capture the goal of such education. “The student is to be prepared not to save his soul, or to inherit the wisdom and usages of past civilizations, or even to get ahead in life, but to become a member of a utopia resting on a false view of both nature and man.”[9]

It is safe to say that the great majority of modern Americans do not understand the true story of America and its institutions. Turnoy and Barnett’s prescriptions to achieve an informed citizenry with regard to American history follow starkly different avenues. Turnoy’s humanistic education model has ruled for the better part of a century and has utterly failed. Barnett offers hope that a return to telling the comprehensive though politically incorrect story of America will result in an informed and politically adept citizenry.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] David Turnoy, “When can we introduce children to honest history?” Tulsa World, June 8, 2014, A14.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Daniel Burnett, “Historical amnesia: Let us never forget D-Day,” Tulsa World, June 6, 2014, A14.
[4] Robert B. Talisse, On Dewey, (Belmont, California: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning, 2000), pp. ix, 1, 4.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 23-25.
[6] Christian Smith, The Secular Revolution, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003), p. 54.
[7] Johnson, p. 300.
[8] Russell Kirk, The Essential Russell Kirk, ed. George A. Panichas, (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2007), p. 400.
[9] Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 117.

Train up a child in the way he should go – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : November 29, 2013
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Category: Archives, Education, Worldview

Marriage, family, and home are necessary elements in the socialization of children. However, nurturing is the glue that must be added to this mix for socialization to occur. As we learned in Part I, conversations between parent or grandparent and child are a major part of nurturing. It is in such an environment that “socialization” takes place, that is, the generational transfer of moral and cultural values—our cultural inheritance.

But nurturing is very difficult in modern society as family members are rarely together for extended periods of time. The demands on families in a fast-paced, technologically driven, and rapidly changing society makes nurturing of children difficult at best. The difficulties expand considerably in households requiring two-incomes, particularly in a society dominated by a humanistic worldview focused on the individual as opposed to the biblical worldview which emphasizes relationships. For most Americans home has become merely a place to sleep and store stuff, and family members are reduced to tenant status where there is little mutual dependence, connection, or cohesiveness. [Johnson, Ye shall be as gods, pp. 336-337.] There is little if any time for conversations and other elements of nurturing, but time is the essence of nurturing.

The cultural and moral values of the colonists and America’s Founders were rooted in the biblical worldview. Regarding the education of children in this biblical worldview, parents are admonished “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” [Proverbs 22:6. KJV] The implication is plain that the primary purpose of a child’s training was transmission of cultural and moral values. This purpose is upheld by the words of Samuel Adams, known as the “Father of the American Revolution.” Adams instigated the Boston Tea Party, signed the Declaration of Independence, and served in both the Continental Congress and the U.S. Congress. His views on education paralleled those of many other Founding Fathers. [Federer, p. 21.]

Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity…in short of leading them to the study and practice of exalted virtues of the Christian System. [Federer, pp. 23-24.]

Until early in the twentieth century, transmission of parents’ cultural and moral values to their children was supported by the educational system and other institutions of American society such as religion, government, and popular culture in general. Beginning principally in the 1960s and 70s, the generational transfer of a family’s moral and cultural values to their children has been significantly hampered in two ways by the progressive education establishment.

Train children to have a humanistic worldview

First, the American educational system is totally immersed in the philosophy of John Dewey that purveys the humanistic worldview which stands in opposition to the Founders’ central cultural vision based on a biblical worldview. John Dewey was a signor of Humanist Manifesto I in 1933, and his humanistic philosophy and worldview have saturated substantially all of American education.

Robert J. Roth describes Dewey’s philosophy as one of naturalism in that…“man with his habits, institutions, desires, thoughts, aspirations, ideals, and struggles is within nature, an integral part of it…and insists…on man’s continuity with nature and on the fact that man can achieve self-realization only in and through nature.” Effectively, Dewey is saying that the human being survives and develops only in and through his material environment. [Roth, pp. 100-101.] In summarizing Dewey’s philosophy, Roth states:

Nothing can be admitted which transcends the possibilities of concrete, human experience. There is no absolute, no transcendent being, no extra-mundane reality…there is no room for a supernatural religion…and that “supernatural” means that which transcends the possibilities of concrete human experience and involves an absolute being. [emphasis added] [Roth, p. 101.]

Thus, we have the dominant theme of John Dewey’s philosophy—denial of God and human self-realization accomplished only through interaction with nature. Under such policies, the primary purpose of this “progressive” education is to prepare children for a career and to be a contributor to the goals of the secular state. The educational system is no longer an ally but an enemy of the generational transmission of the cultural and moral values of the parents.

Limit exposure of preschool children to the biblical worldview of parents

The second way the American educational system stands in opposition to the status of parents and family in the socialization of young children of preschool age is to remove them from the home at a younger age and further isolate them from parental influence in those formative preschool years. The cradle to career approach of education undermines the philosophy that parents have the primary responsibility, right, and privilege to provide the best education for their children. But such social engineering that relegates parents to secondary status in the socialization of their children is unnatural with regard to human nature and results in dire consequences for such a society.

The pressures for universal preschool began in the 1960s. In the Preface for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition of The Hurried Child, Dr. David Elkind wrote of the 1971 enactment of the Comprehensive Child Development Act (CCDA) which mandated compulsory attendance of every preschool child in America at federally run centers. The bill was vetoed by President Nixon who stated that the effect of the bill would be “…to pledge the vast moral authority of the federal government to the side of communal approaches to childrearing [nurturing] as against a family centered approach…” and ultimately lead to destruction of the American family. [Elkind, p. xiii.]

Almost a half century later, the educational progressivists are once again peddling the communal approach to nurturing through a vast, federally controlled early childhood learning program. This time it is Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) which provides grants at the state level “…to improve the quality of early learning and development programs and close educational gaps for children with high needs.” RTT-ELC includes the establishment of early childhood systems that “ambitiously” moves forward a state’s early learning and development program. Like the first RTT initiative, RTT-ELC mandates include early learning and developmental outcomes, common standards within the state, assessments that measure child outcomes and address behavioral and health needs, and extensive accountability and data gathering programs to name just a few. Families are also to be engaged in the RTT-ELC process (and therefore effectively buy into the concept of federal control). [U.S. Department of Education] All of the flaws associated with federal control of education were enumerated in “Common Core Curriculum Standards – The devil is in the details” and need not be repeated in this article. [Johnson, “Common Core Curriculum Standards – The devil is in the details.”]

Not only does RTT-ELC push federal control of education downward to the preschool level, more importantly it is also flawed in the same manner as is the decades-old Head Start program, and children are the unwilling victims. Dr. Elkind gives an insight into our Orwellian future under the current educational model.

The concept of childhood, so vital to the traditional American way of life, is threatened with extinction in the society we have created. Today’s child has become the unwilling, unintended victim of overwhelming stress—the stress borne of rapid, bewildering social change and constantly rising expectations. [Elkind, p. 3]

The homogenizing progressive education system is the force that maintains the factory model of education. Such a model allows the progressives to control the child and ultimately to instill a humanistic worldview. Parents have been shoved aside and the emotional damage to their children will last a lifetime. Elementary schools have become assembly lines where textbooks and curriculum are standardized on a national level, testing has become standardized and one-size-fits-all, teaching is driven by the curriculum content necessary to pass the tests, teachers and administrators are held accountable for educational failures with roots that go far beyond the classroom walls, and teacher creativity and innovation are smothered as they spend as many hours in non-teaching work activities as they do in teaching. [Elkind, pp. 49-50.] The value of many highly qualified and hard-working teachers as well as schools and school districts is measured by test scores significantly influenced by external circumstances and the realities of children’s capabilities over which the teacher has little or no control.

Somewhere in the midst of all of these progressive educational reforms the child has been forgotten as the factory model of education relentlessly hurries children into adulthood. Individual differences in mental abilities as well as learning rates are ignored as children are pressed to meet uniform standards as measured by standardized tests. There is a progressive downward thrust of curriculum, i.e. the pressure to introduce curriculum material at an ever younger age. [Elkind, pp. 50-51.] Parents contribute to the problem by rushing children to a multitude of programmed extra-curricular activities which allow little down-time for un-structured play. Hovering over all of this haste is the omnipresent fear of retention if one doesn’t measure up. Dr. Elkind believes that we have lost perspective about what childhood really means.

…it is important to see childhood as a stage of life, not just as the anteroom to life. Hurrying children into adulthood violates the sanctity of life by giving one period priority over another. But if we really value human life, we will value each period equally and give unto each stage of life what is appropriate to that stage…In the end, a childhood is the most basic human right of children. [Elkind, p. 221.]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 336-337.

William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 21, 23-24.

Robert J. Roth, John Dewey and Self-Realization, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Publisher, 1962), pp. 100-101.

David Elkind, Ph.D., The hurried child – growing up too fast too soon, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2007), pp. xiii, 3, 49-51, 221.

U.S. Department of Education, “16 States and D.C. Submit Applications for the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge,” ED.gov, October 18, 2013. http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/16-states-and-dc-submit-applications-race-top-early-learning-challenge (accessed November 14, 2013).

Larry G. Johnson, “Common Core Standards – The devil is in the details,” culturewarrior.net, November 8, 2013. http://www.culturewarrior.net/2013/11/08/common-core-curriculum-standards-the-devil-is-in-the-details/

Train up a child in the way he should go – Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : November 22, 2013
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Category: Archives, Education, Worldview

My grandmother and I had a lot of conversations. They were usually one-sided with me asking questions but mostly listening to her stories. Of Cherokee ancestry, Sally Pearl (Downey) Hart was born in 1890 in Indian Territory and lived near present-day Ryan on the Red River. She came by wagon with her parents, brothers and sisters to the banks of the Arkansas River across the river from the tiny settlement of Tulsa in 1895. As there was no bridge over the river, the wagon had to be ferried across in order to get to where present-day Owasso is located a few miles north of Tulsa. She and my grandfather met and married in the newly minted state of Oklahoma, and they eventually operated a dairy farm near Owasso.

She told many stories of her early life and family. She was an avid reader and read many stories to me. One of the few books she actually owned was Martin and Osa Johnson’s Four Years in Paradise. I was fascinated as she read to me of their exploration of Africa in the early twentieth century. I still have that book. When I was about seven years old, I recall sitting on the couch beside her as she made a doll out of empty thread spoons, some yarn, and a few bits of cloth. She called it Ezra Taft Benson. Of course today not one in a thousand people will know who Ezra Taft Benson was, but at that time he was the newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower. As the wife of a retired dairy-farmer, she wasn’t too enamored with his agricultural policies. Apparently it made such an impression on me that I still vividly remember that time sitting on the couch beside her and listening.

She was an exceptionally loving, wise, and Godly woman, and much of what I later learned in life and believe today had their beginnings in those conversations with her when I was a small child.

Conversations are important and none more so than those between a parent or grandparent and a young child. It is in such conversations that our cultural inheritance is passed on unimpaired. In a larger sense, family is where “socialization” takes place, that is, the generational transfer of moral and cultural values. From primitive peoples huddled around communal campfires in the millennia of the past to the generations of the early twentieth century, children received most of their values and worldview from their parents, and the local church and community almost universally reflected those same values and worldview. [Johnson, pp. 28, 311.]

However, the generational transmission of America’s cultural inheritance was challenged by the rapid rise of the humanistic worldview during the Boomer generation’s formative years (born late 1945 through 1964). This new moral order not only challenged but significantly damaged the generational transmission of the moral order upon which American society had flourished for over one hundred and fifty years. What made the Boomers different was the occurrence of a series of significant shared events and formative experiences that came together in a unique time and place—the perfect storm as it might be called. This series of significant shared events and formative experiences would ultimately result in dramatic changes in family life and child rearing, education, culture, religion, politics, and government. [Johnson, p. 11.]

One of the most significant formative experiences of the young Boomer generation was the dramatic arrival of television. With the advent of television, there was a new member of the family seated at the communal campfire, and in all of history no intruder into the family circle would so quickly and thoroughly usurp the authority of parents and family in transmitting cultural values. The American child would be exposed to substantial external influences for long periods of time each day. In a series of exceptional essays published in 1981 about television as a social and cultural force, Richard Adler wrote:

The TV set has become the primary source of news and entertainment for most Americans and a major force in the acculturation of children…Television is not simply a medium of transmission, it is an active, pervasive force…a mediator between our individual lives and the larger life of the nation and the world; between fantasy and fact; between old values and new ideas; between our desire to seek escape and our need to confront reality. (emphasis added) [Adler, pp. xi-xii.]

Television was the perfect tool for the transmission of a humanistic worldview to the Boomer generation. Michael Novak called television a “…molder of the soul’s geography. It builds up incrementally a psychic structure of expectations. It does so in much the same way that school lessons slowly, over the years, tutor the unformed mind and teach it ‘how to think’.” To Novak, television is a “homogenizing medium” with an ideological tendency that is a “vague and misty liberalism” designed “however gently to undercut traditional institutions and to promote a restless, questioning attitude.” Television served its masters, the state and the great corporations, even when exalting “…the individual at the expense of family, neighborhood, religious organizations, and cultural groups…that stand between the isolated individual and the massive institutions.” [Novak, pp. 20, 26-27.] The “restless, questioning attitude” is an excellent description of what the Boomer children of the 1950s would exhibit in the 1960s. Many historians and sociologists believe that the greatest number of significant shared events and formative experiences that defined the Baby Boomers as a distinctive group was provided by television—more than the influence of parents and more than the massive numbers that form the Baby Boomer cohort. [Croker, p. 20.] [Johnson, p. 29.]

Television robbed families of time together for conversations necessary for the transmission of their cultural inheritance and replaced it with a humanistic worldview. But television was just the beginning of a new media culture in which technological advances dramatically changed how we live, work, and communicate. In the last twenty-five years we have become a screen culture, but in our rush to connectedness, we have become disconnected. [Elkind, pp. ix-x.] We are inundated with information from television, computers, cell phones, iPads, and monitors in businesses, churches, restaurants, airports, and any other location where there is a concentration of human traffic. We may have hundreds of friends on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter but are starved for real face-to-face relationships in which there is time to listen. And we cannot effectively transmit our cultural inheritance to our children with a few keystrokes and recorded sound bites.

Richard Weaver captured the essence of this loss of time for listening in Visions of Order:

The individual conservators of the past exist no more or they are no longer listened to: the grandmother preserving the history and traditions of the family by the fireside, the veteran relating the story of his battles in the shaded courthouse square, even the public orator recalling the spirit of 1776 on commemorative days. There is no time to listen to them, and time is of the essence. (emphasis added) [Weaver, p. 41.]

There is another thief that has also robbed three generations of American children of their cultural heritage—American education under the humanistic philosophy of John Dewey. This will be addressed in Part II.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishing, 2011), pp. 11, 28-29, 311.

Richard P. Adler, ed., Understanding Television – Essays on Television as a Social and Cultural Force, (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1981), pp. xi-xii.

Michael Novak, “Television Shapes the Soul,” Understanding Television – Essays on Television as a Social and Cultural Force, Richard P. Adler, ed., (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1981), pp. xi-xii.

Richard Croker, The Boomer Century 1946-2046, (New York: Springboard Press, 2007), p. 20.

Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1995, 2006), p. 41. Original copyright 1964 by Louisiana State University Press.

David Elkind, Ph.D., The hurried child – growing up too fast too soon, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2007), pp. ix-x.

Common Core Curriculum Standards – The devil is in the details

Posted by :webmaster On : November 8, 2013
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Category: Archives, Education

The Common Core Curriculum State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) was previously examined in “Education in America – Part III – Common Core State Standards – Educational excellence or secular cultural conformity?” [See Archives – August 9, 2013] This article takes a more in-depth look at the concerns about Common Core and the nationalization of education.

Initially, the CCSSI was a state-led effort that established a single set of educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and mathematics. In that initiative, states were to voluntarily adopt Common Core standards to unify and strengthen educational standards and expectations. However, the seemingly voluntary adoption of standards by the states has evolved through the power of the federal purse strings into mandated standards under various federal programs.

The nation’s governors and education commissioners, through their representative organizations, the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), led the development of the Common Core State Standards which were published in December 2008. However, the federal government under the Obama administration effectively hijacked the program in February 2009 through a $4.35 billion stimulus money “executive earmark” (meaning no-strings-attached) transfer to the Department of Education to create and fund a program that became known as the Race to the Top (RTT), a federal grant competition that allowed cash-strapped states to compete for federal stimulus money. [Race to the Top]

Strings!

But the federal purse had strings attached. To receive stimulus money, the states had to “commit” to the adoption of common education standards. The state commitments had to be made within two months of publication of the standards. State consent came from gubernatorial and bureaucratic offices without any consent of the people or their elected representatives as most of the state legislatures were not in session. The short time frame did not allow for thoughtful review and deliberation of the federal standards by citizens and their representatives. Forty-two states made the commitment (under a federally-imposed definition of commitment) without a single state legislature approving the commitment to adopt common educational standards.

And More Strings!

On May 22, 2012, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) announced another “strings-attached” $400 million federal grant program whose funds would go directly to qualifying local school districts. The program effectively bypasses state governments and undermines state sovereignty. The program is called Race to the Top-District (RTT-D) and includes the following elements. [District-Level Race to the Top]

To qualify, a district must serve at least 2,500 students of whom 40% or more must qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch program.

Each district must create plans for “individualized classroom instruction aimed at closing achievement gaps and preparing each student for college and career.” [One would think that the experts at the DOE would know the average child spends about six and one-half hours per day in the classroom. Using a typical elementary school classroom with twenty-five students as an example, each child would be allotted about sixteen minutes in which to receive “individualized classroom instruction.” And from the allotted sixteen minutes we must subtract the time necessary for lunches and other activities, the time needed for general group classroom instruction by the teacher, and all of the other daily interruptions. One wonders if any of these so-called DOE experts have ever taught in a real-world classroom.]

Districts must demonstrate commitment to RTT’s four core reform areas which include adopting standards acceptable to the DOE and building massive student-data tracking systems. [Standards are not voluntary if the standards must be acceptable to the DOE, and this requirement debunks the supposed voluntary nature of Common Core Standards.]

Districts must show they can track students from pre-K though college and tie the outcomes back to individual teachers. [One wonders how a local school district will obtain the outcomes of a student’s college career. Perhaps the task of accumulating that information will be assigned to the National Security Agency due to its vast stores of information on the private lives of American citizens.]

Applying districts must promise to implement evaluation systems that consider student outcomes – not just for teacher and principal performance, but also for district superintendents and school boards. [Does this mean that the DOE will have the power to fire school superintendents and locally-elected school boards? If the DOE’s power is not direct, perhaps federal funds will be withheld should the local officials not comply with DOE suggestions as to needed personnel changes.]

Applicant school districts must form partnerships with public and private organizations to . . . offer services that help meet students’ academic, social, and emotional needs . . . .” [Thus, it appears that local school districts are answerable to the DOE as to whether students are socially and emotionally well-adjusted. In effect, school teachers will now be responsible for providing time and services for their students’ social and emotional needs in addition to the individualized educational instruction as previously mentioned, all in a six-and-a-half-hour school day.]

RTT-D is a power-grab through which the federal government will skirt citizens’ elected legislative bodies and negotiate directly with school districts in implementation of federal educational policies. RTT-D will also undermine the state governmental structure by grouping school districts together on policy decisions and thereby making it more difficult for the group to disengage from federal programming.

Dr. Allan Carlson is a noted author and lecturer and former Reagan appointee who served five years on the National Commission on Children. In a recent lecture he succinctly described the problems of the Common Core Standards program: more testing, more centralization, more experts, less creativity, and more money for a failing system. [Common Core: The Dangers of Federal Power in Education]

School systems attempting to withstand the assault on their autonomy by rejecting the Common Core Standards, a national curriculum, and national testing will be financially starved into submission. Even faith-based private schools will feel the pressure to conform to Common Core standards. Because Common Core standards are leading to a national curriculum and national testing, ACT, SAT, GED, and other testing programs are being aligned to the Common Core standards. Yet, private school students take those same tests. Inevitably private schools will be pressured to teach to the Common Core standards even if that which is taught is contrary to what they believe. Otherwise, their students will not do well on the Common Core aligned tests. Also, credit transfers from a faith-based school not in alignment with the Common Core may not be accepted by other Common Core aligned schools. And accreditation agencies that require accredited schools to be aligned with the Common Core may not accredit non-complying faith-based schools. [Common Core: The Dangers of Federal Power in Education]

The DOE website disingenuously states that, “Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation.” [The Federal Role in Education] But, the Obama administration and a rapacious federal bureaucracy have seized control over America’s educational system which makes a mockery of the DOE assertion that education is primarily a state and local responsibility.

The federal government is developing a national curriculum under the guise of the Common Core Standards Initiative. Not only is a national curriculum being established but for the first time ever the participating local school must certify that its curriculum complies with federal standards. Federal bureaucrats will determine what children all across America will read and be taught and for how long. Local school administrators are becoming mere toadies answerable only to faceless bureaucrats in Washington. Locally elected school boards would be virtually powerless if not obsolete. And if parents have questions, objections, or concerns about their child’s education, to whom would they turn? With local education in the grasp of a nationalized educational system, the local school board, their local state representative and state government, and even their national representatives will be powerless to address a parent’s concerns. And this massive accumulation of power without accountability is occurring in the absence of any explicit Constitutional authority.

President Woodrow Wilson warned against the concentration of federal powers, and his warning is applicable one hundred years later with regard to the transfer of control of America’s educational system to the federal government.

The history of Liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the concentration of power, we are resisting the powers of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties. [Quoted by William J. Federer.]

Parents, local school officials, and state legislators should be extremely concerned about the destruction of local control of America’s educational system and should strongly resist attempts to do so through the Common Core standards.

George Will summarized the progressive education establishment’s defense of the voluntary nature of Common Core. “If you like your local curriculum, you can keep it. Period.” [George Will] Hmmm. That has a familiar ring to it. I wonder where I’ve heard that before…

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, “Education in America – Part III – Common Core State Standards – Educational excellence or secular cultural conformity?” culturewarrior.net, August 9, 2013. http://www.culturewarrior.net/2013/08/09/education-in-america-part-iii-common-core-state-standards-educational-excellence-or-secular-cultural-conformity/ (accessed October 30, 2013).

“Race to the Top,” Truth in American Education, http://truthinamericaneducation.com/race-to-the-top/ (accessed October 30, 2013).

U.S. Department of Education, “District-Level Race to the Top to Focus on the Classroom, Provide Tools to Enhance Learning and Serve the Needs of Every Student,” ED.gov, May 22, 2012. ww.ed.gov/news/press-releases/district-level-race-top-focus-classroom-provide-tools-enhance-learning-and-serve (accessed October 30, 2013).

“District-Level Race to the Top–Race to the Top IV,” Truth in American Education, http://truthinamericaneducation.com/race-to-the-top/district-level-race-to-the-toprace-to-the-top-iv/ (accessed October 30, 2013).

“Common Core: The Dangers of Federal Power in Education,” Video Lecture, Family Research Council, September 25, 2013. http://www.frc.org/eventregistration/common-core-the-dangers-of-federal-power-in-education (accessed October 30, 2013).

U.S. Department of Education, “The Federal Role in Education,” ED.gov., http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html (accessed October 30, 2013).

William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994, 1996), p. 698.

George Will, “Clunker progressivism: Present, too, is prologue,” Tulsa World, November 7, 2013, A-14.