September 11, 2004
Please consider
printing off a copy of this letter and sending it into your own members of
Congress and to your own local lawmakers to honor those who were killed in the
attacks against our country on September 11, 2001.
Dear [Member of
Congress or state legislator]:
September 11, 2001, was a day
none of us will ever forget.
As we Americans watched hijacked planes
crash into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, most of us
experienced outrage and anger at the evil that had been directed against
us.
President Bush captured the reaction best during his address to the
nation on September 20th:
We are a country awakened to danger
and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger and anger to
resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our
enemies, justice will be done.
It was not long, however, before an
opposing view emerged, a blame-America-first view which asked, "What has America
done wrong to make them hate us so much?" The opposition reached its peak in
public schools during September 2002, the first anniversary of 9/11, when the
nation's largest teachers' union, the National Education Association, released a
negative, anti-America series of lesson plans.
The union suggested to
teachers that they be careful not to "suggest that any group is responsible" for
the terrorist hijackings that killed more than 3,000 people.
One NEA
lesson plan took a decidedly blame-America-first approach, urging educators to
"discuss historical instances of American intolerance," so that the American
public avoids "repeating terrible mistakes." In addition, the blame-America
response suggested despair, futility and defeat, rather than anger and firm
resolve.
The Glencoe-McGraw Hill 2002 U. S. history textbook reflected
the defeated view of the 9/11 attack on our country. In the initial review copy
of the book submitted to the Texas State Board of Education, the authors
communicated malaise at ground zero: "The smell of death.....the odor is
everywhere.......a scrap of skin, a leg......my bones feel ground, my nose numb
from dust and asbestos." [See textbook, http://www.edwatch.org.]
Through discussions between the public and the publisher, the authors incorporated the
spirit of fearless determination. For example, the "Let's Roll" story of Todd
Beamer and his heroic fellow passengers on United flight 93 replaced a
description of despair. The initial and negotiated textbook pages can be viewed
on-line. ." [See textbook, http://www.edwatch.org.]
Teaching a negative
view of our country through lessons about the 9/11 attack on America is just one
example of the kind of anti-American bias that routinely permeates much of our
nation’s curriculum, usually without the knowledge of parents. A careful review
of the content standards that all states have adopted in compliance with
requirements of No Child Left Behind demonstrates that the state standards
themselves reflect a negative bias toward our country, our history, and such
founding principles as national sovereignty, unalienable rights, self-evident
truth, and the economic principles of a free market economy. These biased
standards have been adopted by states and incorporated into the curriculum of
our local schools, textbooks and teacher training institutions because they
conform to national content standards.
Unelected organizations within
the national content standards movement work a tireless agenda to revise
American history to reflect their anti-American ideology. The Center for Civic
Education (CCE) is one of those organizations. Their National Standards for
Civics and Government do not teach students the timeless principles of
America’s history, such as national sovereignty, self-evident truth and
unalienable rights. Yet the CCE is directly funded by Congress to write, publish
and promote their standards with no Congressional oversight. In addition to
funding the development of the biased national content standards, federal grants
and contracts continue to support them as models for state standards and for
national and state assessments. (See FedEd: The New Federal Curriculum and
How It’s Enforced, http://www.edwatch.org.]
On only one occasion have national content standards been submitted to a vote. In 1995, in a
nonbinding vote, the U.S. Senate rejected the National History Standards 99 to
1. Yet those same standards, with only cosmetic changes, are the national
history standards in use in our states and schools today.
To remedy
this matter, we urge Congress to eliminate all funding and grants for the
development, production and promotion of national education content standards,
curriculum, teacher training, and teaching methodology.
We also urge
every state to adopt state content standards that teach patriotism for our
country by implementing the following actions:
· communicate that
while America has made mistakes, our history is overwhelmingly
positive.
· emphasize historically significant events as opposed to
events to meet diversity goals.
· teach the valued history of Western
civilization.
· reverse the dogmatic hostility toward America’s
Judeo-Christian heritage.
· teach the principles of our free market
economic system.
· emphasize the founding principles of the
Declaration of Independence that form the basis of our Constitutional
government.
Sincerely,
[Sign your own name here.]
[Your
name, address, and telephone number.]
**********
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