Liberals Furious over SC Law to Teach the Constitution in Schools

The Republican controlled legislature in South Carolina recently infuriated liberal groups by insisting that state universities teach students about the U.S. Constitution and other founding documents.

The SC House of Representatives had recently cut funding for two state universities that had required students to read homosexual-themed books. This month, a revised budget restored the funding.

But the renewed funding had strings attached. The new budget stipulated that the money was to be used "for instruction in the provisions and principles of the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers, including the study of and devotion to American institutions and ideals."

The debate began in March when Rep. Gary Smith (R-Simpsonville) introduced the legislation to deduct $52,000 from the budget of the College of Charleston and $17,142 University of South Carolina over the two school's reading requirements.

"The College of Charleston assigned a book called Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, which is about a lesbian woman and her relationship with her father who she one day learns is gay too," the University Herald website reported in March. "South Carolina Upstate assigned a freshmen course to read "Out Loud: the Best of Rainbow Radio, which is a collection of stories from the state's first radio show targeted for a homosexual audience."

Critics of the legislation said that Republicans were attacking academic freedom.

As a compromise, State Republicans added a provision for schools that have a mandatory reading schedule to provide an alternative in case required books conflict with a student's religious tenets.

Governor Nikki Haley decided not to challenge the budget plans but said she didn't necessarily fully agree with it, either. In a statement, Haley said that she "didn't want to interject ourselves into" the deliberations.

"I don't believe legislators should micromanage our boards. They elect board members, so if they want to beat up on them, go for it... but to go in there and micromanage books being read, I think that's out of our purview," Haley said.

Several Democrats attempted to amend the budget to reverse the cuts but their attempts failed.

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The Education Establishment's Success

By Walter E. Williams

Many view America's education as a failure, but in at least one important way, it's been a success — a success in dumbing down the nation so that we fall easy prey to charlatans, hustlers and quacks. You say, "Williams, that's insulting! Explain yourself." OK, let's start with a question or two.

Are you for or against global warming, later renamed climate change and more recently renamed climate disruption? Environmentalists have renamed it because they don't want to look silly in the face of cooling temperatures. About 650 million years ago, the Earth was frozen from pole to pole, a period scientists call Snowball Earth. The Earth is no longer frozen from pole to pole. There must have been global warming, and it cannot be blamed on humans.

Throughout the Earth's history, we've had both ice ages and higher temperatures when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today. There's one immutable fact about climate. It changes, and mankind can't do anything about it. Only idiocy would conclude that mankind's capacity to change the climate is more powerful than the forces of nature.

During Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, his slogans were about hope and change. At the time, I asked people whether they were for or against change. Most often, I received a blank stare, whereupon I reminded them that change is a fact of life. Nonetheless, when candidate Obama uttered "hope and change," it was received with thunderous applause. There was also thunderous applause when Obama promised, "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Only a deranged environmental wacko and duped people could believe that a non-god can change ocean depths.

Americans fall easy prey to charlatans of all stripes because of the education establishment's success in dumbing down the nation. Nowhere has this dumbing down been more successful than it has in creating a historical amnesia. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. wrote in "The Disuniting of America": "History is to the nation ... as memory is to the individual. As an individual deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where he has been or where he is going, so a nation denied a conception of its past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future."

The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests students in grades four, eight and 12 on several broad subject areas every few years. Just 20 percent of fourth-graders, 17 percent of eighth-graders and 12 percent of 12th-graders were at grade-level proficiency in American history in the 2010 exams. Because students don't learn American history, they learn little about our founding principles and they fail to learn why America is an exceptional nation. But that's a part of the progressive/liberal agenda. If Americans knew and understood our founding principles and values, special interest groups and politicians couldn't run roughshod over our liberties.

But it's not just K-12 students who are ignorant of our history. In a 1990 survey — and there's been no improvement since — almost half of college seniors couldn't locate the Civil War within the correct half-century. More recently, 60 percent of American adults couldn't name the president who ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb, and over 20 percent didn't know where — or even whether — the atomic bomb had been used.

The same people didn't know who America's enemies were during World War II (Germany, Japan and Italy). In a civics survey, more American teenagers were able to name The Three Stooges (Larry, Moe and Curly) than the three branches of the federal government (executive, legislative and judicial). A third of the people who were asked the origin of the statement "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" responded by saying it's from our Bill of Rights, when it's actually from "The Communist Manifesto."

I'd say that the education establishment has been successful beyond its wildest dreams in reducing Americans' ability to think and therefore causing them to have little knowledge of or love for our founding principles.

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Australia: Schools ditch jargon for plain English in student reports



SCHOOLS have begun ditching jargon from student reports ahead of new rules forcing them to be written in plain English.

The switch aims to make the documents easier for parents to decipher and more ­personal.

All schools will have to ­follow suit next year.

Sale’s Guthridge Primary School is among those banishing confusing language in semester reports, to be distributed at most schools this week.

Principal Sue Burnett said she had personally read reports for all 364 students wearing her "mum’s hat” to ensure they were easy to understand.

Technical language from the curriculum had gradually crept into teacher feedback, with some feeling obliged to use the terminology, she said.  "It’s basically trying to get away from that," Mrs Burnett said.

"Basically a parent just wants to know, can their child read and write, what are they like at maths, are they well behaved, are they trying hard.”

Park Orchards Primary School principal Georgina Daniel, whose school sent new plain-English reports home last Friday, said feedback from parents had been positive.

Many had raised concern reports were too complex during a recent survey.

"We did some analysis and review of the reports with staff with a view to trying to reduce jargon and educational words that teachers understand but parents may not,” Mrs Daniel said.

"Parents have really responded to the fact the reports really convey meaningful information about their child’s achievements.”

New guidelines, drafted by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, will next year require school reports to be written in plain English and gradings made simpler.

"We want to make sure parents and families can understand what their child is learning and how they are progressing, through simple, flexible, individually focused reports," Education Minister Martin Dixon said.

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