FFRF Harassing School Districts?

Demanding that public schools stop engaging in sponsored prayer at school events is not harassing, it is simply just a demand. Harassing would be to demand they stop every day in every way until they stop.


However, The New American thinks a simple demand equal harassment. But, this is not surprising coming from them since they are not what you would call a mainstream media source. Their coverage of topics always fall very far to the right.

Here is how they started their article: 

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) continues its attack on the constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech and religious expression as it targets school districts in Mississippi and Kentucky that have held to their long-time traditions of public prayer. 

They apparently misunderstand the phrase, "constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech and religious expression". Luckily, we have some some who does understand the phrase.

“Prayer over the loudspeakers at football games is a constitutional no-no,” quipped FFRF spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The Supreme Court has spoken on this issue…. We’ve given them the law, and the law is incontrovertible. What they’re doing is illegal.”

 Fortunately, I believe the school board reaffirmed their policy of no prayer.

Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

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Book Censorship Increasing in Public Schools

The American Library Association says the number of reported challenges in the past 30 years has hovered between about 400 or 500, but there are many bans they never learn about. While parents have traditionally launched the lion’s share of challenges, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, an attorney with the association, says she has noticed “an uptick in organized efforts” to remove books from public and school libraries.

The library association reports that this year alone, U.S. schools have banned more than 20 books and faced more than 50 other challenges, with many more expected this fall as school starts. 

A review of the books banned by various schools in the past six months illustrates that eliminating this “objectionable material” actually deprives students of the chance to think and form their own opinions about difficult questions.

List of books banned:

Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

Why Wait Until You Are Sued?

  Image via Wikipedia

What is it with school districts and putting up the Ten Commandments? Do they really think that no one is going to notice? Do they think everyone who sees them is OK with it and won't say anything? I just don't get it.

Officials in Giles County Public Schools, acting on a school board vote, removed controversial displays of the Ten Commandments this morning from various buildings, said Amanda Tickle, board clerk and executive secretary in the school system.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation threatened Jan. 20 to sue in federal court to get the religious writings taken down.

I am glad they are removing but they never should have been there to begin with. Why did they way to get sued?

Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

Yet Another School Disrtict Being Investigated for Civil Rights Violations

I have posted before about school districts being investigated by the Office of Civil Rights. This time we have a school district being investigated after a NAACP complaint was filed against the board for eliminating racial diversity through reassignments and disproportional suspension of minority students.

Wake School Board Under Probe
By T. Keung Hui, Thomas Goldsmith, and Mandy Locke, The News & Observer, N.C. (MCT)

Wake County school leaders will have to defend their student assignment and discipline policies to federal civil rights investigators responding to complaints filed by the NAACP.
The Office of Civil Rights investigates a third of the 6,900 complaints it receives each year, according to Jim Bradshaw, a spokesman of the U.S. Department of Education. Wake was notified about the investigation in a letter dated Nov. 5. Bradshaw said they typically try to complete investigations within six months.
If the school system is declared in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Wake could lose about $80 million a year in federal funding.
Word of the Wake review comes near the end of a tumultuous year for the elected leaders of the 143,000-student system. Having discarded socioeconomic diversity as a factor in school assignment, as newly elected board members promised voters last fall, the school board now faces not only the federal investigation, but also a review by a national accrediting body.
The state and national NAACP alleged in complaints filed in September that the board engaged in racial bias by eliminating diversity in the assignment policy, through student reassignments made this year and in the way minority students are disproportionately suspended.

Read the entire article here.
 
Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

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Schools Pave the Way to Hell

John Dewey Image via Wikipedia

Or at least that's what we are led to believe in this incredible post by Bill Wilson at Standing for God.
Bill starts off with the provocative title, "As Souls Hang In The Balance, Public Schools Pave The Way To Hell." 


He starts off by blasting the Cambridge, Mass public schools for including a Muslim holiday in next years calendar. He quickly devolves from there. Here are some choice quotes:

The public schools are generational brain-washing facilities for the Communist Manifesto which “abolishes eternal truths,” “all religion,” and “all morality.”

The brainwashing by the public schools is deeply rooted in the Hegelian Dialectic as brought into the schools by John Dewey, co-author of the Humanist Manifesto, a socialist and considered the “Father of Education” by the National Education Association. 

This guy is truly a piece of work. There is no critical thinking going on in the post. I have seen more coherent thoughts by conspiracy theorists.

Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

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Modesto, Ca. Science Teacher to Teach ID

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According to the Modesto Bee, Roosevelt Junior High (Modesto City Schools) science teacher Mark Ferrante announced at back-to-school night that he would teach the theory of intelligent design alongside evolution. District officials said teaching ID will not happen however some trustees said that ID should be taught. Parents are equally diveded.

 

District trustee Nancy Cline said,

"The current curriculum states that the evolution of man, Darwinism, must be taught as a theory. I feel we do our students a disservice by not helping them become critical thinkers when we forbid the teaching of competing scientific theories, such as intelligent design."

However, Modesto City Schools spokeswoman Emily Lawrence said,

"He will not be teaching intelligent design. He has been instructed to teach the state standards and intelligent design is not in the state standards."

Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

Publisher To Remove Creationism Material From Text Book

Image by ljfullofgrace via Flickr

It is a good thing there are pro-science advocacy groups like, Florida Citizens for Science:

Creationism has become a possible minor issue here in Florida recently as instructional materials committees conduct a scheduled review of materials and recommend new textbooks for the state’s classrooms. A book meant for marine science classes contained some unusual language that raised red flags for a couple of members of one committee. “Life on an Ocean Planet” (a Florida edition published by Current Publishing Corp with a copyright of 2011, ISBN 978-1-878663-66-5) contained a two page informational sidebar entitled “Questions About The Origin and Development Of Life” that is packed with good ol’ fashioned creationist language. No, I am not exaggerating; it’s really packed. For a purported science book, these two pages manage to mangle basic science concepts to a jaw-dropping degree while at the same time injecting a laundry list of tired creationist objections to evolution.

Read their entire post here.
 
Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

FFRF Letter Shelves Library Bible Club

Image via WikipediaA single letter from the FFRF to a Bellwood, Pa middle school closes the book on a bible club. The principal and school's attorney quickly respond to the issue:

School says it will drop Bible/Library Club
September 20, 2010

The Bible/Library Club that was a homeroom activity at Bellwood-Antis Middle School in Bellwood, Pa., has been dropped by the public school district after a complaint by the Freedom From Religion Foundation on behalf of a parent.

FFRF sent a letter Sept. 13 about an Aug. 30 flier that was sent home with students listing the club as one of four that students could participate in during the first-semester homeroom activity period. The other three are chorus, band and cartooning.

The description for the Bible/Library Club, supervised by librarian Susan Crawford, says: "Students will assist in the various library activities of organizing and returning books to the shelves and creating bulletin boards. Students may participate in various 'Christ' centered activities such as devotional readings, Bible study, prayer and games."
FFRF received a letter from Principal Donald Wagner dated Sept. 14:  "The club name has been changed. The new name of the club is Library Club. There is no reference to the Bible and there will not by an 'Christ' centered activities, devotionals, prayer or Bible study."

That letter was followed up by one dated Sept. 15 from David Andrews, a school district attorney. "The superintendent was not aware that this club was being conducted during the school day." Andrews said the district "has taken immediate steps" to discontinue it during the school day and will not allow it to be led or supervised by a teacher.

"The district will permit the Bible/Library Club to meet before or after school as a student-run organization," Andrews said.

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Is This Even Legal?

Image via WikipediaAnd if it is legal, is this a good idea?

I have seen many closed public schools in my area leased to private, charter and religious academies but I have never heard of a Christian school leasing space inside a functioning public school.

Living Stones Academy a start-up Christian school opened this month with 42 kindergarten through fifth-grade students in one leased hallway of the U-shaped Grand Rapids Public Schools Southeast Academic Center.

Apparently, the organizers of the school have never heard of a Christian academy inside a public school either. I wonder why?

Appeals Court Weighs Pledge in Schools

From Education Week:

Another Appeals Court Weighs Pledge in Schools

By Mark Walsh on September 15, 2010 12:50 AM  

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It seems that one way or another, the controversy over the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is headed back to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, in Boston, heard arguments last week in a case challenging a New Hampshire law that requires schools to set aside time daily for students to voluntarily recite the pledge.
As with a past case and a pending case out of California, the New Hampshire suit challenges the inclusion of the words "under God" in the pledge.
A federal district court upheld the New Hampshire statute in February, ruling that the law has the permissible secular effect of "teaching our country's history to the elementary and secondary pupils of this state" and that it does not have the effect of coercing children to support or participate in religion.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation appealed the ruling to the First Circuit, and it enlisted longtime pledge challenger Michael A. Newdow, of California, to argue its case.
Sheri Qualters, of The National Law Journal, has this account of the Sept. 9 oral arguments in Freedom From Religion Foundation v. United States. A recording of the oral argument is available on the 1st Circuit's Web site, although it takes a bit of navigation to reach the right place under the "Court Calendar" button.
The statute is being defended by the state of New Hampshire, and the U.S. Department of Justice intervened to defend acts of Congress that added "under God" to the pledge in 1954 and reaffirmed that version of the pledge in 2002.
Newdow, the physician and lawyer who has crusaded for years against "under God" in the pledge and the motto "In God We Trust" on the nation's money, maintains a Web site that has briefs and documents from both sides in the New Hampshire case.
In March, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled against Newdow and a group of atheist parents who challenged school-led recitations of the pledge as an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The court said the pledge was predominantly a patriotic exercise. I blogged on the decision here.
Newdow is seeking review by a larger of panel 9th Circuit judges in the case involving the Rio Linda Independent School District in northern California.
Newdow was also behind an earlier case challenging the pledge in his own daughter's school, which the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in 2004 but disposed of on procedural grounds in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.

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