'Ugly truth' from public districts should 'alarm' parents
By Sterling Meyers
Inaccurate textbooks, parents' rights being violated, sex education that goes too far. Found in schools in a Third World nation or a repressive Islamic society? Nope. Right here in the good ol' United States of America.hat's what Steve Baldwin and Karen Holgate, the authors of "From Crayons to Condoms: The Ugly Truth about America's Public Schools," have documented.
They've assembled a long list of horror stories about the nation's public schools, from the teachers, students and parents who have witnessed them. The book, released today, will be the subject of discussion when the authors are interviewed by Fox's Sean Hannity on Hannity Radio at 2 p.m. Eastern and on Hannity and Colmes TV at 9:50 p.m. today
American schools are "not just rife with bizarre, inaccurate textbooks and failed teaching practices – they encourage classroom activities that produce dangerous, even deadly results," they say.
Baldwin, a former California state legislator and the current director of the Council for National Policy, and Holgate, an advocate for national educational reform, believe that public schools "can be saved" if "parents are ready to fight for their children every step of the way."
Inside the book's 263 pages are stories citing the deterioration of academic standards, including stories of students who receive grades as a group or based on expressed feelings and emotions rather than right or wrong answers to math problems and spelling quizzes.
According to the editors, "school reform is an experiment" in the eyes of school administrators and superintendents. "If it fails – too bad," Baldwin and Hogart wrote.
"The educational bureaucracy is willing to tolerate failure for and from our children," they continued. "The question is: Are we willing to tolerate their failure to educate our children, and will we continue sacrificing our children at the altar of experimental education?"
"I intend to make this book required reading for all of my listeners. I have been fighting the prevalent anti-values agenda for decades," talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger said of the revealing new project.
Other stories in the book include accounts of parents whose children were victims of death education. One account involves an 8-year-old who committed suicide after he watched a disturbing video in his second-grade class at school – a video that allegedly promotes psychologically healthy thoughts about death and dying.
Still other stories involve the public school system's sometimes blatant push toward a homosexual agenda, and an Islamic education that moves "beyond 'teaching' about a religion" and teaches the religion in a pro-Islamic way, according to the editors and the teachers and parents who wrote testimonials.
As for parents, the message they're given by public schools is: "Give us your children."
Baldwin wrote of his time in the California Assembly when he tried to uphold parental rights within public schools, but other legislators insisted that parents have no direction and control of their children within public schools. Invasive surveys and broad parental consent forms restrict the privacy and the rights of students and parents, the editors wrote.
One chapter is directed specifically at mothers and fathers. It's called "What Can Parents Do?" and gives practical "Dos and Don'ts" for parental action on local and legislative levels.
The authors hope their book alarms parents enough for them to become actively involved in the education of their children on a local, state and even national level.
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