Last night at the Christian Life Assembly, in Sparta, TN, there was standing room only. The Sanctuary was filled beyond capacity to learn more about the textbook being used in 7th grade Social Studies. Most were local residents, but some (like me) drove quite a distance to participate. Usama Dakdok (Straight Way of Grace Ministry) began his detailed presentation by quoting one of the local school board members who stated that they found the textbook "factual and without bias". Well, I don't know what book they were reading but either it was not the book in use OR their knowledge of Islam is grossly limited. Usama showed page by page the errors, misrepresentation and outright lies that are contained in this text.
For a detail review of the book, you can find one by our very own Dr. Bill Warner HERE.
The attendees went away with some assignments. Petitions were provided to help gather signatures. Citizens were encouraged to contact the local board of education members to express their dissatisfaction with the decision of the board.
Never doubt that making our voices heard is effective. If parents and interested citizens all across the state had not been speaking out about the Social Studies standards and this textbook, we would never be seeing this: Why Tennessee is reviewing social studies standards
Be encouraged: YOU are making a difference.
TO THE PARENTS IN AND OUTSIDE WHITE COUNTY:
Are YOU reviewing your student's textbooks and other materials used in the classroom??? Do you know that you have a RIGHT to see the textbook, teaching materials, handouts, etc., used in classroom?? In 2014, TN Eagle Forum passed a law GIVING you that right. I suggest you print this law out HERE and have it in hand then you contact the teachers in your school.
THE NEXT EVENT:
Concerned Parents and Citizens in White County, TN
November 3, 2015 North Sparta Church of God
335 N Spring Street
Sparta, TN 38583 GUEST SPEAKER: Kamal Saleem
SPARTA, Tenn. -- About 350 concerned citizens gathered at a church in White County upset about a textbook. They want the school board to get rid of a 7th grade history book that they believe promotes Islamic indoctrination.
"It is our time, it is our place to stop it here," said Steve Gill, a speaker at the event.
People gathered after what they heard on the radio and after getting word about what children are learning in school.
"It's in our classrooms in White County," says the radio ad paid for by the Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination.
"This is the book," said Bryan Wright, co-chair of Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination. "And this is supposed to be history right? Islam Today."
Many in this mostly Christian Tennessee county, believe 7th graders are getting too much religion in their curriculum.
"So you'e be fine with no Christianity?" asked Reporter Sabrina Hall.
"I'd be fine with no religion being taught in school," said Wright.
Despite protest, the White County School Board has voted to keep the textbook, one of two approved by the Tennessee Department of Education.
"We voted not to get rid of the book because it's a book about world history not indoctrination," said Edd Cantrell, the chairman of the White County School Board.
The school board said it reviewed the book and found it factual and without bias. Parents, who say they read it, disagree and want the school board to replace it with something else.
Melanie Balakit, mbalakit@tennessean.com 2:18 p.m. CDT October 20, 2015
A White County group expects hundreds of people at a town hall meeting against Islamic "indoctrination" in schools Tuesday night.
The new group, White County Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination, joins others in the state concerned about pro-Islamic bias in middle school social studies classes.
The group claims a seventh grade social studies textbook unfairly represents major world religions. They also claim the White County school board has been unresponsive to their concerns.
"We have no problem with teaching world history. We have no problem with world religion. We want it to be fair and balanced and accurate," said Anthony Wright, chairman of White County Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination.
Tennessee sixth and seventh grade students learn about the rise, spread and impact of major world religions on societies in social studies classes. Students learn about Islamic civilization in seventh grade.
White County Schools, a small district with one middle school, uses "My World History and Geography: The Middle Ages to the Exploration of the Americas" in seventh grade social studies classes.
"It doesn't report 9/11, ISIS. It doesn't talk about any Islamic group," Wright said, referring to the textbook.
Middle school students learn about the Islamic civilization up to the 1500s, according to state standards.
Wright also claimed the book explained how to convert to Islam, but not to Christianity.
"All it takes is one seventh-grader to go home and recite the five pillars of Islam, then go to a school with a bomb in their backpack and blow up 10 kids," Wright said.
Muslim converts technically recite the Shahada to profess their new faith. The Shahada is the first pillar of Islam.
"We don't want that book taught. There's other books available," Wright said.
School districts select and approve textbooks from a state-approved list. Other school districts, for example, use "Discovering our Past, A History of the World."
Superintendent Sandra Crouch said she was advised by legal counsel not to comment.
"Our teachers do not teach religious doctrine at all. We simply teach world history according to the state department of education standards," said school board chairman Edd Cantrell.
Parents across Tennessee are taking on the state's political and educational establishment, aiming to get rid of the recently implemented Islam-centric seventh grade Social Studies standards.
A group of parents in White County, about 100 miles east of Nashville, are taking the fight to the seven publicly elected county school board members in that county who approved the purchase of the new Islam-centric textbook that elaborates on those standards, myWorld History and Geography: The Middle Ages to Exploration of the Americas, published by Pearson Education.
A similar grassroots rebellion between 1999 and 2002 prevented the state's establishment Republican Governor, Don Sundquist, from imposing a state income tax on Tennesseans. In 2014, that prohibition was made permanent in an amendment to the state's constitution approved overwhelmingly at the ballot box by voters.
The current uprising pits Tennessee parents against Republican Governor Bill Haslam, the Tennessee Department of Education, the large and powerful multinational textbook publisher Pearson Education, the state's educational bureaucrats, unaccountable local county school directors, and their far too compliant local school boards.
The involvement of Pearson Education is particularly controversial since its parent corporation, London based Pearson PLC, is partially owned by the Libyan Investment Authority. With 3 percent of Pearson's outstanding stock, the Libyan Investment Authority is one of its largest shareholders.
The Washington Times recently reported there is a financial connection between the Libyan Investment Authority and the Council on American-Islamic Relations:
According to the Financial Times, the Libyan Investment Authority was founded by Muammar Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam; more than five Gaddafi family members own shares. The Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR, a recently designated terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates), Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Muslim Brotherhood invested in Pearson Education through the Libyan Investment Authority.
CAIR has inserted itself into the Tennessee seventh grade Social Studies standards political battle, even though barely 1 percent of the state's population self-identifies as Muslim. The group has publicly criticized the state legislator who has introduced legislation to prohibit the teaching of religious doctrine prior to the tenth grade in Tennessee.
A number of Tennessee parents also claim that CAIR has provided supplementary materials used by some Tennessee school districts to support the new seventh grade standards.
One reason for CAIR's interest in Tennessee is that it has the highest percentage of Evangelical Christians of any state in its population, according to a recent Pew Research Poll on religion in America. As a result, Tennessee may be the "tip of the spear" in attempts to crush public opposition to Islamization.
An award winning Tennessee educator with years of experience teaching seventh grade Social Studies tells Breitbart News the state should get rid of the Islam-centric standards adopted by the Tennessee Department of Education in 2014.
"These [new Social Studies] standards are not appropriate for seventh grade. We need to revert back to the old standards. They were very comprehensive and at grade level," Kyle Mallory, a tenured history teacher in Stewart County who was named the Tennessee Teacher of the Year for grades 6 to 8 by the VFW in 2014, tells Breitbart News.
"The problem is not teachers. This is a problem of the standards and materials," Mallory adds.
Breitbart News has obtained a copy of the previous standards for seventh grade Social Studies. In contrast to the current seventh grade standards, which deal with World History and Geography exclusively during the period 400 AD to the 1500s, (an approach more often associated with high school or college curriculum), the previous standards provided a very broad overview of cultural, economic, geographic, governance and civics, and historical issues that have shaped our current world.
All major religions - Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam - were briefly summarized in the old standards. Students were introduced to the complexity of the various cultures in the world at an "age appropriate" level of detail.
In contrast, only Islam is given detailed attention in the new standards. In fact, as Breitbart News reported previously, 13 percent of the learning objectives of the current standards (10 out of 75) are devoted to instructing students on both the tenets and history of Islam.
The problem of Islam centric bias is compounded, Mallory says, by the state's failure to provide unbiased supporting materials to the teachers charged with delivering the approved content to students.
"Many teachers teaching seventh grade are sixth to eighth grade certified, not content teachers," Mallory tells Breitbart News.
As a result, these teachers who are forced to teach about Islam by the new standards, and especially those in counties that have not yet purchased the controversial new Pearson Education text, myWorld History and Geography: The Middle Ages to Exploration of the Americas, sometimes search the Internet to find content that supports the new Islam centric standards. That content, some parents claim, originates with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has been called by the United Arab Emirates a terrorist supporting organization.
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MC Steve Gill begins the program Attorney Mike Shepard lays out what he believes to be the school board violations Pastor Dale Walker (TN Pastor's Network) gets the crowd fired up
Usama Dakdok starts his presentation
Parents: Pro-Islam textbooks violate Constitution Notify governor, legislature, education department that investigation is needed
Parents in Tennessee have put their governor, legislature and state education department on notice that they want an investigation into pro-Islam bias in the textbooks and other materials used in public schools there.
The curricula violate the state law and constitution, and the U.S. Constitution, the parents contend.
Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president of Proclaiming Justice to The Nations, noted that concerned citizens have been trying to get the problem addressed for several years.
But on Thursday, she asserted enough is enough.
She issued a call for Gov. Bill Haslam, the Legislature and the Tennessee Department of Education to launch a "full and thorough investigation into history, geography and social studies curriculum, textbooks and instructional materials that were adopted by the Tennessee Textbook Commission in 2013."
A report she released said "evidence shows that many of the textbooks and instructional materials are in direct violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, as well as a newly adopted Tennessee law ... that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2015."
Additionally, the suspect books are "replete with historical inaccuracies, biases and values that do not reflect our communities across the state."
Just over the last month, a non-profit law firm tried to review curriculum and instructional materials, her report said, but a lawyer for the Tennessee School Board Association is trying to block the review.
Last year, Cardoza-Moore asked lawmakers to get an opinion from the state attorney general on whether the materials are legal.
The fight dates back to 2013 when the state textbook commissioners "knowingly" adopted books containing "anti-Semitic, anti-American, anti-Judeo/Christian, pro-Marxist and pro-Islamic" narratives, her announcement said.
"This puts our local school districts and county commissions at risk of a potential lawsuit because the textbooks and instructional materials do not comply with the new state law and clearly violate the U.S. and state constitutions by favoring the establishment of Islam over all other religions," she said.
The content of the materials became an issue when parents contacted PJTN regarding a PowerPoint being used in their child's 7th grade classroom teaching about the religion of Islam.
TO THE PARENTS IN AND OUTSIDE WHITE COUNTY:
