Chapter 5, Part III: Textbooks and Values

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s children may not always bring their textbooks� and handouts home, parents need to take the initiative to ask for them and review them.� What does one look for?� Check the index, table of contents, glossary, and page numbers related to issues such as: overpopulation, abortion, “lifestyles,” “prevention,” family planning, AIDS, sexually-transmitted diseases, pollution, contraception, current issues, China, evolution, Creationism, or issues of personal interest and concern.� Also ask the teacher for an opportunity to review the Core Competencies and Key Skills� manual and a copy of the class goals/outcomes, syllabus, reading and video lists.

Does the text address issues in such a way as to support or undermine the valuesÂ? of your faith and family?Â? Is the information factual?Â? What documentation can you provide which shows the information is inaccurate or incomplete?Â? How do you obtain it?Â? Do you know of agencies or organizations that can help locate and/or supply the needed documentation?

Good educators appreciate calm, kind parents who are backed with documentation.Â? Educators are the employees of tax-paying parents, and the goals of both are the correct and appropriate instruction of children.

Following are some examples of concerns found in some school textbooks:

1. The third edition of Addison-Wesley’s Sophomore Chemistry text states:Â? “The world population is increasing more rapidly than the food supply.” [1]Â? Â? (This statement does not appear in the fifth edition.)Â? Â? However The War Against Population, authored by Dr. Jacqueline KasunÂ? an economics professor from Humbolt University in California, states:Â? “–World food production has increased considerably faster than population in recent decades.” [2] Â? Â? This documentation was sent to Addison-Wesley regarding the inaccuracy in their text.

Addison-Wesley responded, “We agree with you that the statement is no longer true.Â? However, there is certainly truth in the fact that the food supply, while keeping pace with population, is not distributed evenly among the world’s peoples–[T]his statement does not appear in the most recent fifth edition of Addison-Wesley Chemistry.”[3]

2.� Glencoe’s World Geography, 3rd Edition contains a picture whose caption identifies the picture’s building as:� “The Family Planning Center and Red Cross Hospital in Darima, India.� The sign [on the building] reads, ‘A small family is a happy family.� For free advice and help, go to the nearest family planning� center.’” [4]

A biased prejudice against large families, generally associated with population controllers, is obvious in that caption.Â? There exists a pervasive anti-child mentality from the pill peddlers and abortionÂ? profiteers to the environmental wackos who see people as a form of pollution.

Glencoe’s response was, “The textbook� in no way makes a value judgment on the appropriateness of family size.� It does, however, indicate the fact that the nation of India� has an official policy of encouraging small families, and uses a photograph to illustrate India’s policy.”

Glencoe’s textbook doesn’t explain that India’s population control� policy is brutal, coercive, and compulsory, in order to meet population reduction and sterilization goals imposed by the United States’ Agency for International Development� as a condition for continued funding!� “In one case, villagers in India� were offered cash payments on condition that 75 percent of all men in the village submit to vasectomy.� In another Indian village, 100 percent of eligible couples accepted family planning, mostly vasectomy, in exchange for a new village well.” [5]

3. The Story of America is an eighth grade Social Studies text published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Â? Regarding the 1973 Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade abortionÂ? decision, page 1,112 states, “–Roe v Wade ruled that a woman’s constitutional right to privacy included the right to have an abortion done the first three months of pregnancy.”

The text is incomplete and misleading.� An abortion� may be obtained during all nine months of pregnancy.� The Library of Congress’ Abortion: Judicial and Legislative Control, issue brief number IB74019, documents what Roe vs. Wade� said:

a) In months 1-3 the decision to abort is left to the woman and her doctor.Â? (Fathers have no legal standing to protect their unborn child.}

b) In months 4-6 the state may, if it chooses, regulate abortion.

c) In months 7-9 the state may, if it chooses, regulate and even prohibit abortion except for reasons of health.

In Doe vs. Bolton, health was defined as “all factors physical, emotional, psychological, familial–” In effect, this allowed abortionÂ? from conception to birth for any reason.

4. The World Today a seventh-grade Social Studies text published by Heath states:� “The Chinese government wants couples to have only one child.”� China’s one-child policy was reinforced in a positive light in a classroom handout worksheet.

China’s one-family-one-child policy is held up as a world model to students while facts regarding the brutality of China’s policy are being withheld from students.� Mothers pregnant with a child for whom they have no government “permission” or certificate to bear are forcibly aborted anytime prior to birth, and sterilized.

“Fines equivalent to hundreds or even thousands of dollars–are imposed–homes are routinely knocked down if the fine is not paid–Li Qiuliang spends her time lying in bed, emotionally crushed and physically crippled.Â? The baby died because under China’s complex quota system for births, local family planningÂ? officials wanted Ms. Li to give birth in 1992 rather that 1993–so when she was seven months pregnant, they took her–and ordered the doctor to induce labor.Â? Ms. Li’s family pleaded, the doctor protested. Â? But the family planning workers insisted.Â? The result: the baby died after nine hours, and 23-year-old Ms. Li is incapacitated.” [6]

Some school textbooks� provide the false impression that the world is overpopulated and unable to produce enough food to feed the masses.� One seventh-grade Social Studies text states, “The Chinese government wants couples to have only one child.� Not only does China� have a large population, it also has a shortage of good farm land.” [7]

Students are not provided facts that document that such fears are unfounded.Â? One such fact is that the total population of the world is 5,613,064,000. [8]Â? The state of TexasÂ? is 261,914 square miles, or 7,301,743,257,600 square feet in size.Â? This means that each person on the face of the earth could be placed within the state of Texas, placed on 1,300 square feet apiece, with room left over for an additional 3,661,582 people!!Â? The world is NOT overpopulated.Â? Hunger exists because of poor distribution, politics, and greed.

Textbooks and the education establishment may be unwittingly partaking in the conditioning of students to believe that child bearing is not a right of parents, but a privilege to be bestowed by the government.� (See the chapter titled “Are You “Nuts” If You Think It’s About Population Control?”)

If you find discrepancies in textbooks� or curricula, be sure to bring it to the attention of the publisher and your school district’s curriculum director.� A copy of the documentation that supports your position is generally appreciated.� Those who have the best interest of education and children at heart appreciate constructive input.

School districts have a curriculum committee that reviews texts prior to purchase.� Contact your superintendent’s office to ask how you may become a member of this committee.

If we wish to remain free, we must not educate our children to sacrifice their individual sovereignty in favor of governmental collectivism (Socialism).Â? It is through the virtues and valuesÂ? of the Judeo-Christian ethic and lifestyle that we voluntarily reach out and assist those in need without governmental dictates.

For additional documentation and information on curriculum critiques, contact Educational Research Analysts, P.O. Box 7518, Longview, TexasÂ? 75607, telephone: (903) 753-5993.