On April 16th I posted Delegate Bob Marshall’s observation that Prince William County Schools did not appear to have followed proper procedures when it selected its mathematics text for the fifth grade (see here). These concerns have since made it into one of our local papers.
The fifth-grade primer “Investigations in Number, Data, and Space” is not on the state’s approved list of textbooks and has its detractors.
Kim Simons, one such detractor of the text that teaches Math Investigations, said the Prince William County school system did not follow required procedure in adopting the elementary school textbooks in 2006.
Virginia Department of Education regulations state that assessments of textbook criteria must have the approval of the local school board.
Simon said she asked Prince William school officials, under the Freedom of Information Act, for a copy of the school board’s official approval of the book.
Simons said school officials told her that the school board didn’t do that, so they didn’t have a copy.
“As far as Prince William County was concerned, they were done. It wasn’t their job to approve the criteria,” Simons said. (continued here)
As the news story above continues, it becomes clear that PWCS does not seem to have followed the rules. Nonetheless, neither the School Board nor its lawyer seem willing to concede the point. If you are interested in the PWCS legal argument, here (04-22-09-ltr-to-del-marshall-re-mi-w-encls) is a copy.
Who is right? Since the rules in this case do not include enforcement procedures, it does not make a huge amount of difference. What is pertinent is the fact that a great many parents are unhappy with the textbook. Moreover, the Virginia Department of Education did not recommend using the text.
What the squabble also highlights is the amount of latitude the public school system gives professional educators in the instruction of children. Even though many parents have good reason to think Math Investigations provides their children inadequate math instruction, these parents are stuck with it.
What I fear is programs like Math Investigation reveal only the tip of the iceberg. What else is missing from the education of children? What else have so-called professionals deprived children of in their education?
In an earlier era, local communities had full control over the education of their children. In addition to making certain their children learned Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, parents saw to it their children learned about the Bible and the role of good men and women in the governance of their community. Do they learn these things now?
Look about you. We live in an increasing secularized society. More and more people think only of themselves. What is the primary value taught by the public school system? It is tolerance, tolerance of almost anything. Children learn their rights and to esteem themselves. They learn little of responsibilities except perhaps to Mother Earth, polar bears and whales.
Of politics children learn too little. They are too likely to learn participation in politics consists of nothing more than going to demonstrations and waving a sign about. Of religion they learn almost nothing of value. Christianity they may too easily come to regard as unscientific superstition, and multiculturalists will teach them other religions are just variations on the same theme as Christianity.
What children are too unlikely to learn is how Christians came together in brotherly love to form a republic. They will not learn how:
- Christian nations worked to end religious warfare by enshrining freedom of religion in Law.
- Christian nations were the first to set slaves free.
- Christians created the first nations where men and women have equal rights.
