Problems in Education

                Problems in the education systems of our nation continue to pop up in the news.  Although there are many good teachers who have the best interests of their students at heart, there are also many people in the education system who are pushing a progressive agenda or who are just not transparent in their dealings with the taxpayers.

                Jason Richwine, an expert at The Heritage Foundation, recently revealed that school systems are hiding teacher benefits by their accounting procedures.  “Proper accounting would reveal tens of billions of dollars in extra teacher pension costs, equivalent to somewhere around $1,000 in unreported spending per student.”  He explained, “This undercounting occurs because the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) allows states to define teacher pension costs as whatever school districts happen to contribute to their pension funds each year, rather than the amount needed to pay for future pension benefits.”

                Richwine continued, “Because pension benefits are guaranteed by state law and often by state constitutions, underfunding pension plans today does not reduce benefits or save money in the long term.  It simply delays paying for steadily accruing benefits, forcing future taxpayers to deal with the growing problem.”  This transparency problem can be fixed by school systems simply owning up to the problem.

                A much bigger problem is the propaganda that is being taught to the rising generation.  Over the past ten years “tens of thousands of schools” have used a video to teach school children that the United States may have caused the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

                The Blaze recently reported that “Americans everywhere were outraged to discover fifth grade students in Texas were being taught that United States foreign policy decisions helped cause the tragic 9/11 terrorist attacks.  The Blaze reported last week that students in Corpus Christi, Texas, were required to watch a controversial video, distributed by digital education company Safari Montage, and then take an accompanying quiz that placed blame on the U.S., not radical Islam, for the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, which left nearly 3,000 people dead.”

                The Blaze has carried several articles about a controversial curriculum management system called CSCOPE currently being used in Texas.  In an article in February, Texas announced that there would be “major changes” made to the system.  “The system received a litany of complaints from faculty members and parents alike concerning its lack of transparency (parents were allegedly not permitted to review lesson plans), lack of oversight from the State Board of Education, and for allegedly imposing oppressive working conditions for faculty members.

                “CSCOPE was created so that teachers could frame their year around teaching points required by the state.  Lessons, which are written by CSCOPE staff and current and former teachers, can be updated and delivered online, making it more cost-effective than standard textbooks.

                “To note just how off-color some of the CSCOPE curriculum is, consider that the Texas CSCOPE Review, an independent watchdog group, uncovered an out-of-date, optional CSCOPE lesson plan on terrorism - `World History Unit 12 Lesson 07’ – which allegedly likens the Boston Tea Party to `an act of terrorism.’

                “The system also recently asked students to design a flag for a new socialist nation.”

                The article continued:  “CSCOPE has been adopted by some 75 percent of Texas schools and the aim was to implement a national adoption of the management system.  However, according to some education blogs, Common Core Standards sought to purchase CSCOP as a national curriculum standard.  It is by far and away, one of the more hotly contested topics in the current education debate and much mystery still remains as to CSCOPE’s core tenets.

                “Beck noted that secular progressivism, further, the notion of communal life and collectivism, is at the system’s core.  Other points of contention concerning CSCOPE curriculum include lesson plans positing that Christopher Columbus was an `eco-warrior’ and, when referring to the famed explorer’s journal, all references to God and Christendom were removed.

                “Students are also posed with hypothetical scenarios concerning historical figures and have allegedly been asked to take a position on population growth.  Students were even subject to a lesson framed around the idea that `Christianity was a cult,’ Beck noted.

                Glenn Beck and The Blaze may be the only media sources reporting on CSCOPE, but there may be other sources as well.  I encourage you to study all available sources to learn as much as possible about what is being taught to YOUR children.  Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler understood the importance of indoctrinating the rising generation, and they took over the German government by doing so.  We must be aware of what is being taught in our schools.  If we cannot change the curriculum, parents may need to teach their children at home.  We cannot allow the enemies of our nation to indoctrinate our rising generation!