SUPPORT SCHOOL VOUCHERS? THINK YOUR CHILD WILL GET A BETTER EDUCATION IN A PRIVATE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL? READ ON...

        There's been a lot of noise made lately about the sorry state of public education, with some folks attacking teachers' unions and other working state legislatures to divert public school funding to private religious schools via voucher programs.  Almost no one is actually talking about the quality of the educational experience offered in those private school settings, because the contentious issue of raping and pillaging public school funding gets all the attention.
         Now, to be fair, there are a LOT of public schools that are failing the kids in them.  And there are a LOT of private schools dedicated to giving their students the very best educational opportunities available.  Both of those statements are facts, beyond dispute.

          But here's another fact you might want to consider if you're thinking of vouching for vouchers:  the money being diverted from public school funding in some states is going to schools that employ textbooks published by Bob Jones University Press and by something called the "Accelerated Christian Education" curriculum.

           There's an article currently receiving attention on AlterNet by Bruce Wilson in which he lists some of the dubious data being passed off as factual content in textbooks for private religious schools that are receiving tax money previously collected for public education.   Would you be happy knowing your tax dollars were buying textbooks that promote the actual existence of the Loch Ness Monster, claiming the creature is a dinosaur?  That dinosaurs and men coexisted a few thousand years ago?  That the KKK was good for some communities?
           Here are some of the "facts" gleaned from textbooks in schools currently receiving public voucher funding:
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- Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.

- "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."

- "God used the 'Trail of Tears' to bring many Indians to Christ."

- It "cannot be shown scientifically that that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere's ozone layer."

- "God has provided certain 'checks and balances' in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists."

- the Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda.

- "Unions have always been plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created."

- Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential win was due to an imaginary economic crisis created by the media.

- "The greatest struggle of all time, the Battle of Armageddon, will occur in the Middle East when Christ returns to set up his kingdom on earth."

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              There you go.  Your tax dollars at work. 

              Listen, if you want your children learning Bible verses instead of biology, pony up the cash and send them to Christ R Us Academy on your own dime.  But don't take tax money we ALL contribute for public education and spend it on this medieval horseshit.

              I hope you'll take the link at the top of this post and watch the video these folks have put together on this issue.