School Board Meeting – Tuesday, November 18th Topic: ELA Curriculum In August, we came before you and asked you to vote against an additional expenditure of $800,000 which was in addition to $2.8 million that had already been spent (without the public’s consent) on CC materials. In response, one of the curriculum specialist stated that they were merely purchasing “beautiful” library books, which the teachers needed. It was also stated that our teachers had enough “common sense” to NOT teach anything controversial. Basically, we were mocked for showing concern over the content of the ELA books, which we felt did not reflect the values of our community. Since that meeting, numerous morally bankrupt books have been brought to the attention of the C&I department. I have a list of book titles, but it would take too long to read off all of the titles. Here are some of the topics that teachers and parents found objectionable: excessively descriptive violence such as murder, butchering infants, cutting off ears etc., the books discuss nakedness, drunkenness, rape, having multiple wives, cannibalism, and exposes our students to the worshipping / idoling of various gods. As a society have we really become so prideful and foolish as to ignore a commandment which instructs us to only worship one true God? When we asked for the removal of these books (which undermine our morals and confuse our children), we did not expect to hear that we should accept them because Amazon gave them a 5 star rating or to defend them based on the fact that the bible talks of such evils. While it is true that these things are mentioned in the bible, no Sunday school or catechism class would teach those things to 9 year olds, because it’s not developmentally appropriate. We understand that these reading materials come from the State of Louisiana. Our problem stems from the fact that you “our local school board” have blindly accepted what the state has pushed on you. I contacted the LADOE requesting a list of which Parishes chose to adopt Tier 1. This was their response: (Read the LADOE email response) So while you continue to point fingers at the LADOE they are squarely putting the choice of curriculum back in your court, which does go along with ACT 532. Why even have Parishes if they aren’t going to ensure that the local values of our communities are reflected and upheld? Isn’t our curriculum and instruction department paid to review our curriculum BEFORE it gets to the hands of our teachers? Local citizens pay taxes to support our schools and we have a vested interest in the efficiency of their operation. How much of our taxpayer money has been wasted on all of these books that had to be pulled? Right now parents, teachers, and taxpayers don’t have much trust in our school board. Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you CAN do. The people of Calcasieu Parish need you to be an “institutional buffer” to protect our schools from state bureaucrats. We are asking that CPSB assert their leadership role and lead Louisiana out of the “educational malpractice” that we have fallen victim to.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 04:53:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015