perfidy

J,
Ya gotta read "The Language Police". The appendix with the banned words is hi-larious.

Right! I couldn't remember the title or author of that book to save my life. Ravitch does make essentially the same point at much greater length.

Can't say "old"!!

J,
A couple I remember off the top of my head:

"jungle", bad; "rainforest", good.

"hut", bad; "little house", good.

"lumberjack", bad; "woodcutter", good.

We'll need to work a bit on "sphincter clenching rectitude", though.

Well, as a guy with a (whatever the singular of chirren is) in TX schools, I can tell you that I doubt the existence of some alleged overarching effect of "Christian Conservatives" on schoolbooks here. In fact, I'd find Schaub's commentary more enlightening if it wasn't so easily dismissed on its face.

"Global Warming", for instance, surely exists, as does the dreaded "Global Cooling" we were all so a-scared of a scant 25 years ago. BFD. Nobody's yet told me why I should get my knickers in a knot about it, and I'm more concerned by the blindly environmental crap my daughter's fed at school every day than that she'll get too little. Presumptions that the environment should never be allowed to change are both vacuous and contrary to the very theory of evolution Schaub is so worried won't be taught.

Oh, and on that theory, whatever its form of delivery, my fourth grader's apparently getting enough information on the matter that she regularly poses questions to her mom and me about the conflicts between the biblical view of things and evolution. Of course, I remind her that the bible's a book, just like any other, and that she should continue to use her head. So pardon me for my lack of concern about the content in TX schools. Seems about right to me, based on the admittedly-early results so far.

I think Patton makes some good points. Kids have to be taught to think for themselves no matter what is taught in school or where they are going to said school.

The reason I am not concerned is that from what I've seen, TX schools are pretty decent. My brother and I went to OH schools while my two sisters went to TX schools. The TX schools were better, had higher standards, got more results, and encouraged more thinking on the part of the students. My sisters were actually challenged in school. I wish I could say that.

I think, no matter what, that we'll be homeschooling the spawn. Not for religious or political reasons, but because we really do think they'd just get more out of it. Besides, mommy is really looking forward to having gym glass at the local Martial Arts school. Can you say "hi-yah?"

re: textbooks

"But I hear they make good kindling."

Actually, no. (Well, if you tear them up, fluff the pages, etc., yeh.) But on a good, roaring fire? Great fuel.

Mini-background: I've taught in public schools (hereafter more correctly referred to as "prisons for kids"). Lotsa teachers in the family (and God help her, a daughter on the cusp of finishing her masters in an unrelated field has decided she wants to teach grade school... *sigh*). My perspective? The single greatest barrier to teaching is the unholy combo of administrators and parents who make excuses for why the little dears simply cannot learn and dumb down curriculum, badger teachers who expect excellence, etc.

Then there are the second-tier issues like the resultant dumbed-down curriculum and the legion of "teachers" who have either given up fighting for excellence or are the dregs left from the exodus of good teachers from the system.

Lastly, of course, is the problem resulting from the conspiracy of dunces formed by lazy parents and stupid teachers that results in the inmates (the *soi-disant* students) running the prison (that institution often disingenuously called a "public school").

Patton and Miz B, how do you expect me to write a blog if I'm constantly called upon to exercise restraint and consideration.

That being said, you both raise good points that I was negligent not to include in my post. Textbooks are the *least* of the problems with many public schools... David has definitely underlined a few of the bigger ones (lazy parents and poor teachers sucking the wind out of the efforts of the *good* teachers is my pet peeve).

What it really comes down to is I don't want to send my kid to a school where he or she could be suspended, expelled, or arrested for offering another kid Tylenol for a headache, for drawing a picture of a gun (I'd have been suspended every single day of twelve years of school if they'd been doing that twenty years ago), for writing a story about zombies, or for daring to fight back when somebody gets all up in their shit and needs a beating. OK, that last one would take some handling, but even the local news up here is constantly full of new outrages perpetrated on schoolchildren.

Then again, children in Massachusetts seem to all go through a ten-year "sociopathic monster" phase regardless of intelligence level, social background, or parental competence that makes me really reluctant to send my kids into the Mass public school system for any length of time. Before writing back to tell me that kids are like that everywhere, no, they are not. I've lived elsewhere, plenty of elsewheres, and little Massachusetts kids are the worst of the worst.