Censoring Books, Handing Out Bibles, Teaching Creationism[SchoolBoard]

[AnIndependentTexan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20713-2004Oct9.html

Charles County
School Board Considers Censoring Books, Handing Out Bibles, Teaching Creationism
Some Teachers Decry List of Ideas as Attempt to Inject Christian Values Into Curriculum

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 10, 2004; Page C04

To Margaret Young, vice chairman of the Charles County Board of Education, the required reading lists in her Southern Maryland school system are teeming with "profanity and pornography, fornication and adultery."

Take, for example, "Dust Tracks on a Road," an autobiography by acclaimed American author Zora Neale Hurston. Young said the book contained "disgusting" scenes of "inappropriate" sexual conduct.

"I think parents would be appalled if they really read the books their kids were reading that were so filled with profanity and pornography," she said. "I rely on the school system to provide good wholesome reading for my children."

So when the Board of Education recently compiled a list of goals and suggestions for improving the school system, Young said she supported the recommendation that calls for "removing anything that provides a neutral or positive view of immorality or foul language."

But this proposal, and others that recommend distributing Bibles in schools, removing science books "biased towards evolution" and teaching sexual education classes focused exclusively on abstinence, has upset those who fear some board members are attempting to impose personal religious and moral beliefs on the public schools.

[AndyP]

1. well

they obviously haven't read the bible. It's chalk full of everything they mentioned.

[yellowcanine]

2. These are not board proposals - Yes it is bad that school board

members are this ignorant but these are "goals and suggestions" that came out of a "brainstorming" session. I think it may actually have a positive result because it appears that the board is about to get "educated" on these issues as a result of the fuss they created.