Monday, April 15, 2013

We cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that without the Bible, we would know nothing about God. (John H. Walton p409)

NY Teacher Who Asked Students to ‘Argue That Jews Are Evil’ Reportedly Put on Leave

NY Teacher Who Asked Students to ‘Argue That Jews Are Evil’ Reportedly Put on Leave:

New York Teacher Who Had Students Argue Jews Are Evil Has Been Put on Leave

A screenshot of the writing assignment asking students to argue the Nazi case.

Parents were horrified when it was revealed that a teacher at Albany High School in New York was making students in her sophomore English classes argue that “Jews are evil” as part of an exercise in persuasive writing.
TheBlaze’s Tiffany Gabbay explained the assignment and its wider implications:

“You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant to hone students’ persuasive argument abilities.

According to the Times Union, which broke the story, the teacher was not in class Friday and has been placed on leave.
District Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard held a news conference apologizing for the assignment, but said it was too early to determine what punishment the teacher will receive.
It could apparently range from a letter of reprimand to termination.
“You asked a child to support the notion that the Holocaust was justified, that’s my struggle,” she said. “It’s an illogical leap for a student to make.”

Albany Public Schools Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard speaks about an assignment asking students to create a persuasive argument blaming Jews for the problems of Nazi Germany during a news conference on Friday, April 12, 2013, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

The school district has not named the teacher, who has been described as a veteran who likes to “challenge” students. Monday’s assignment was brought to administrators’ attention by a horrified parent, before making national news. Some of the children reportedly refused to write the essay, but others were concerned it would irreparably affect their grade.
“I was putting it off because I didn’t want to think about it and I didn’t want to say anything bad about Jewish people,” 16-year-old Emily Karandy remarked. “We thought it would make more sense if we were Jews arguing against Nazis.”
She said she felt “horrible” when she turned it in.
New York City Councilman David Greenfield was one of many to call for the unnamed teacher’s resignation, concluding: “The teacher responsible for coming up with and assigning students with this task must be held accountable for attempting to indoctrinate children with anti-Semitic beliefs…Quite obviously, this teacher lacks the judgment and common sense necessary to have a position of such great responsibility and is clearly not fit to return to the classroom.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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‘Do Not Pick Up the Pencil’: New York Parents Coach Kids to Refuse Common Core Tests

‘Do Not Pick Up the Pencil’: New York Parents Coach Kids to Refuse Common Core Tests:
Common Core, the controversial set of educational standards aimed at firming up students’ grasp of math and language, has already attracted criticism from sources both left and right. On the one hand, privacy advocates fret over the program’s data mining on students. On the other, teachers complain that the standards are overly rigid and won’t lead to a better education system. And now, parents angry over their students being tested on subjects they haven’t had time to learn are striking back as well — by giving their children a truly hands’ on lesson in civil disobedience.
WHEC Rochester reports:

Some parents are really fired up over this. News10NBC talked with parents outside School No. 33 including city school board member Willa Powell. The New York State Education Department says students are obligated to take the state tests, just like any other test and cannot opt out. But parents say they have the ultimate authority when it comes to their kids. They’re going to tell their kids to not pick up the pencil and tell the teacher they don’t have to take the state test.
Willa Powell, City School Board Member, said, “Guide your child to tell them how they go about refusing. How they go about refusing is simply do not pick up the pencil. Do not put their name on the page and say I don’t have to take this test. It’s that simple.”
Beth Laidlaw, City School Parent, said, “My child would not take a test whose score is not reported to the classroom teacher so it can’t help the classroom teacher do her job better. The scores are not included in the report card grade so it can’t hurt the child not to take it. As a parent, as a U.S. citizen, it is wonderful that I am able to coach my child to refuse these tests.”

The station also produced a video report, viewable below:
These instances of civil disobedience may hold back the test’s administration, though the extent to which they have that effect will depend on how many students are induced to behave in this fashion. Otherwise, a few students may end up simply failing due to blank tests.
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Melissa Harris-Perry: ‘I Stand By’ ‘Kids Belong to Whole Communities’ MSNBC Promo

Melissa Harris-Perry: ‘I Stand By’ ‘Kids Belong to Whole Communities’ MSNBC Promo:

MSNBC

MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry on Saturday strongly reaffirmed the sentiment behind her recent promotional ad for the network in which she declared that children are part of the collective.
Addressing the outcry on her show Saturday morning, Harris-Perry said it would be “too easy” to simply dismiss that some people are just “haters.”
In the ad, Harris-Perry said that “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”
“I can see that some people are genuinely upset about what I actually said,” she said.
She added, “I stand by that statement. Families have first and primary responsibility for their children. The private sphere of our homes and families deserves great deference in policy and in practice…but I believe our children are not our private property, they are not just extensions of ourselves. They are independent, individual beings.”
Harris-Perry — who is auctioning off the sweater she wore in the spot for charity — said the ad “isn’t about me wanting to take your kids, and this isn’t even about whether children are property.”
“This is about whether we as a society, expressing our collective will through our public institutions, including our government, have a right to impinge on individual freedoms in order to advance a common good. And that is exactly the fight that we have been having for a couple hundred years,” she said.
She said a budget debate, after all, is “a conversation about finding the balance between rights and responsibilities — private earnings and public investments.”
“Our kids who will inherit our nation belong to all of us and we have a collective responsibility to them. I hit a nerve with a 30-second promotional ad, and the nerve that I hit is connected to the central nervous system of our democracy, at the synapses of civic engagement is the electrical current that forges our more perfect union.”

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Friday, March 08, 2013

What Is Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and What Do Its Members Really Believe?

What Is Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and What Do Its Members Really Believe?:
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a larger series about lesser-known religions called “Understanding Faith.” Today’s subject is the Nation of Islam. In the past, we’ve covered Chrislam and Sikhism, among other faith systems.
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You’ve likely heard or read about the Minister Louis Farrakhan and his fiery sermons about race, politics and Allah’s impending wrath upon America (TheBlaze has covered Farrakhan extensively). But do you know much about the Nation of Islam (NOI) — the controversial faith system that the infamous preacher leads?
Patheos, a web portal that reveres itself as the WebMD of faith and religion, defines the NOI as a, “Religious and cultural community based on Islamic concepts that evolved in the 20th century in the United States out of various black nationalist organizations.”
Despite having the word “Islam” in its title, the faith system is not what one would think. Contrary to the centuries of Islamic history that have abounded, NOI is less than 100 years old. The religion’s roots date back to the 1930s, when Wali Fared (also known as W.D. Fard) set its foundations. At the time, Fard was going door-to-door in Detroit, Mich., selling goods and telling African Americans about his theological views.
After he disappeared in 1934 and was never heard of again (the church’s official web site refers to his disappearance as a “departure”), Fard passed leadership of the group to a man named Elijah Muhammad (real name: Elijah Robert Poole), who then led the denomination from 1934 until his death in 1975. Under Muhammad, Fard was revered as “the long-awaited ‘Messiah’ of the Christians and the ‘Mahdi’ of the Muslims” — a controversial claim to say the least.

What Is the Nation of Islam and What Do Its Members Really Believe? | Louis Farrakhan

Minister Louis Farrakhan speaks during the Saviours’ Day annual convention at the U.I.C. Pavilion in Chicago, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Credit: AP

Under Muhammad, some of the denomination’s most controversial ideas were manifested. He maintained that he was Allah’s prophet. Additionally, contentious ideas about whites commenced during his decades in NOI leadership. Later, though, his son, Warith Deen Muhammad, attempted to de-radicalize the group, bringing it back to a more mainstream version of Islam. Discontented with this decision, Farrakhan broke away to create the fiery branch that continues to captivate headlines.
Beliefnet provides this contentious history in more detail:

Elijah Muhammad taught that American blacks, a group that includes all people of color, were descended from the ancient tribe of Shabazz that had originally settled the holy city of Mecca, and that blacks and whites can share no real community. Malcolm X was his closest collaborator until a quarrel between the two men in 1964. Malcolm X then went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he saw people of every race worshiping side by side, and he became convinced of the hopelessness of racism.
He returned to the United States and founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which preached black nationalism but not black separatism. He was shot and killed while speaking to a large gathering in New York City in 1965. After Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975, his son Warith Deen Muhammad radically transformed the Black Muslim movement, opening it to whites and renaming it the American Muslim Mission. In 1979, Louis Farrakhan broke away from the Mission, establishing the more radical Nation of Islam, which restricts membership to blacks and advocates a separate black social structure.

As Beliefnet notes, NOI’s focus is on the advancement and sustainability of non-whites. Considering Farrakhan’s sermons, which range from curious to troubling, this notion of an ethnic or race-based theology is evident. The faith leader and others in the nation often demonize Caucasians, referring to them as “the enemy” and decrying their mere existence.

Members of the Nation Of Islam cheer as minister Louis Farrakhan speaks during the Saviours’ Day annual convention at the U.I.C. Pavilion in Chicago, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Credit: AP

Farrakhan has repeatedly said that the human race was originally black and that whites are, as Beliefnet notes, an “aberration.” Rather than preaching a message of unification, NOI calls for segregation and separatism. On the group’s web site, the denomination is clear that it wishes for African Americans to live separately from whites.

“We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own — either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years–until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.
Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.”

Farrakhan and other leaders have maintained that whites were created by a renegade black scientist known as Yacub (some claim he is known as Jacob in the Bible). The church’s message has essentially been rooted in the notion that blacks are superior to their white counterparts, while regularly condemning whites and placing a major focus upon the horrific treatment African Americans once received in the U.S.
When NOI began, its members were implored to follow strict rules. In addition to being prevented from eating pork, they could not smoke of drink. Their clothing was conservative in nature and they were also forbidden from marrying outside of the race (something that still seems to be a rule of sorts, based on the NOI web site).
Beliefnet also contends that leaders within the movement once told members to avoid the draft, as the military was seen as a tool of white oppression. The group, as seen by Farrakhan’s continued visibility, has been successful.
“By turning racist ideas around to oppose whites, the movement has attracted many adherents and has had particularly good success in converting prisoners, criminals, and drug users,” Beliefnet notes. “Black Muslims have financed the construction of mosques, schools, apartment complexes, stores, and farms.”

Beliefnet’s chart showing the differences between Nation of Islam and traditional Islamic belief. (Photo Credit: Beliefnet)

Widely seen by other Muslims as an outside movement, the NOI, headquartered in Chicago, Ill. (Mosque Maryam), has brought itself more in line with mainstream Islam of late. Fasting for Ramadan and Friday prayers (rather than Sunday) are just two of the changes that were purportedly made to sync the denomination up with Muslim tradition.
In addition to referencing the Koran during his sermons, NOI reveres a number of other texts. Fard’s “The Secret Ritual of the Nation of Islam” and “Teaching for the Lost Found Nation of Islam in a Mathematical Way” — two booklets that he wrote before his disappearance — serve as guidance for members, among other texts.
A media outlet called Final Call also serves as a newspaper and online web site, offering members news and information through an NOI lens. As far as the Bible goes, the church believes that it must be interpreted so that alleged falsehoods that are presented in it can be corrected.
“We believe in the truth of the Bible, but we believe that it has been tampered with and must be reinterpreted so that mankind will not be snared by the falsehoods that have been added to it,” the NOI web site proclaims.

Members of the Nation of Islam cheer as minister Louis Farrakhan speaks during the Saviours’ Day annual convention at the U.I.C. Pavilion in Chicago, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Credit: AP

It’s difficult to pin down the number of adherents in NOI. A U.S.-centric faith, the majority of believers reside within the nation’s borders. While Beliefnet estimates that there are 100,000 people who embrace Farrakhan’s controversial theology, Patheos reports that the number is somewhere between 10,000 and 70,000, but calls that wide range “disputed.”
You can read all of the NOI’s “wants” and “beliefs” on the group’s web site. From a request that African Americans be exempt from taxes to a push for the release of Muslims held in federal prisons, the list is extensive.
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CSCOPE: Exposing the Nation’s Most Controversial Public School Curriculum System

CSCOPE: Exposing the Nation’s Most Controversial Public School Curriculum System:
In February, Texas announced that the state, along with the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum (TESCCC,) would enact major changes to the controversial curriculum management system dubbed CSCOPE. 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.
To glean greater insight, Glenn Beck invited special guests David Barton and Pat Gray, along with teachers Mary Bowen, Stan Hartzler and Texas State Sen. Dan Patrick to discuss what is truly going on within their state’s education system.
Barton explained that CSCOPE is referred to as “instructional material” and not “curriculum,” therefore is not subject to regulation by the State Board of Education. The historian also brought in artifacts of Texas public school curriculum to showcase just how different it is today and to mark, year-by-year, the increasing application of political correctness in lesson plans.
Using a chart, Barton documented and mapped out core CSCOPE material, which eliminates national values, Americanism or rather, American exceptionalism, the study of federalism and majority rule (the core of our constitution) along with patriotic symbols like the Liberty Bell. Christopher Columbus, Rosh Hashanah and Christmas are all relegated to the dustbin along with American military history. Equality and a belief in justice is replaced by “fairness” and instruction on American propaganda and imperialism.
Disturbingly, Beck and Barton noted that the worst is yet to come. Showcasing a lesson plan for grades 1-3, Barton revealed CSCOPE’s list of “heroes,” which comprises a dozen secular progressives and only three conservatives or political moderates.

According to a previous report from TheBlaze, teachers complained that they were expected to deliver the curriculum verbatim and only on days allotted by the CSCOPE lesson plan. Even if students were unable to absorb the lesson, teachers were allegedly directed to progress to the next lesson regardless. TheBlaze also reported that teachers were “asked to sign a contract that would prevent them from revealing what was in the CSCOPE lessons or face civil and criminal penalties.”
The controversial program’s website states that CSCOPE is a comprehensive online curriculum management system developed and owned by the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC), a consortium composed of the 20 ESCs in the state.” It goes on to explain that the CSCOPE system provides curriculum framework for grades kindergarten through 12 across a broad range of subject areas.
The online description might raise red flags for some when it states that the CSCOPE content is regularly updated based on, among other criteria, “feedback collected through various stakeholder groups in the collaborative, including individual teacher submissions through the CSCOPE website and the School District Advisory Committee, comprised of district representatives from all participating regions of the state.”
What, or rather who, comprises CSCOPE’s collaborative and stakeholder groups? That question and a myriad others are what critics hope to get to the bottom of.
But while the groups to which CSCOPE appears relatively beholden may sound alarms for critics, the actual researchers CSCOPE credits with providing the basis for its curriculum seem to be formidable industry veterans by and large. Those educators include Robert Marzano, Fenwick English, John Crain, Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, H. Lynn Erickson, and James Barufaldi.
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, CSCOPE reportedly refused when Common Core Standards sought to purchase the system as the 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.
CSCOPE’s director, Wade Labay has defended his curriculum and maintained that controversy has stemmed from misconceptions.” For instance, he said that framing the Boston Tea Party as an act of terrorism was merely one teacher’s way to engage students in the day’s lesson.
State Sen. Patrick, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, has led the CSCOPE hearings, bringing the controversial system to public light. He pushed CSCOPE to allow parents to view curriculum and to lift gag-orders on teachers. Patrick explained his experience bringing CSCOPE to task and revealed what he believes is in store for his state.

Hartzler, who taught math for nearly four decades, retired early because of CSCOPE. He said that he was written nearly a dozen times for not following the system’s lesson plan and maintains that CSCOPE is dumbing-down American students. He said he tried his best to follow the lesson plans, but simply could not.
Bowen, who is currently forced to use CSCOPE in her school district, feels that schools are now more like factories that send children out into the real world from an assembly-line that has not even given them the basics. She spoke to Beck despite the fact that CSCOPE had set up disciplinary consequences for doing so.
Bowen said that the lessons were mediocre at best, often “riddled with errors” and that “tests were invalid.”
“There’s tremendous coercion. It’s an incredibly oppressive environment.” She added that there have been teachers who were fired for speaking out to the school board.

Bowen also explained that teachers spend “one out of every five” days testing students, and that those tests provide data for the government’s use.
When asked what they tell parents who are inquisitive about their child’s lesson-plans, Hartzler said he violated his gag-order “right away.” He said he showed the parents why the students were struggling and where they should go from that point on.
Beck said that President Obama will look to move forward with implementing CSCOPE or such systems within a short time-frame. The panel said concerned Americans should send letters to the Attorney General and that emergency legislation should be enacted to help teachers push back.
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Friday, February 15, 2013

Pile of Crap - 2.15.2013

CALIFORNIA POLICE CHIEF: ‘A GUN IS NOT A DEFENSIVE WEAPON — THAT IS A MYTH’

Feb. 14, 2013 5:52pm Jason Howerton

Earlier this month, Emeryville, Calif. Police Chief Ken James argued that a gun is not a “defensive weapon” but rather an “offensive weapon used to intimidate and used to show power.”

“One issue that always boggles my mind is that the idea that a gun is a defensive weapon,” he said. “That is a myth. A gun is not a defensive weapon.”

He was speaking during a press conference promoting strict gun laws in California. James is also the chairman of the Police Chief Association’s Firearms Committee.

“A gun is an offensive weapon used to intimidate and show power,” James added. “Police officers don’t carry a gun as a defensive weapon to defend themselves or their other officers. They carry a gun to be able to do their job in a safe and effective manner and face any oppositions we may come upon.”

He went on: “If it was a defensive measure, why did we lose 55 officers nationwide last year to gun violence? And unfortunately, in just the two months of this year so far, we have lost two officers to gun violence in the state of California alone…We are asking and have been asking for reasonable regulations, not that are going to impact the legal gun owner.”

Those reasonable regulations include a ban on semi-automatic rifles, high capacity magazines and universal background checks. Lawmakers in California — and now Missouri — have alsoproposed legislation that includes potential confiscation of semi-automatic rifles.

Do you agree that a gun is not a “defensive” weapon?

Link

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Registration Will Lead to Confiscation

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/11/canadian-news-anchor-issues-ominous-warning-to-america-registration-will-lead-to-confiscation/

CANADIAN NEWS ANCHOR ISSUES OMINOUS WARNING TO AMERICA: GUN REGISTRATION WILL LEAD TO ‘CONFISCATION’

A Mind Awake