Texas Board of Education authorities have launched an investigation in the state’s school curriculum, based on complaints that approved teachings are actually indoctrinating students with a pro-communist ideology.
Board members are holding the first of a planned series of reviews on Friday in Dallas, NBC reports. That comes after the state attorney general reported to NBC that the office was investigating “potential improprieties” that give rise to “significant legal concerns about the program’s operations,” NBC reports.
The attorney general’s office didn’t specify the concerns.
The curriculum is used in 875 of the state’s 1,028 school districts, NBC says. The group that designs the curriculum, CSCOPE — which doesn’t stand for anything — says its lesson plans, which are designed for the Internet, are being taken out of context and complaints are groundless.
Some of the complaints: That CSCOPE teaches that Allah is God, and that CSCOPE promotes communism, NBC reports. One lesson plan, for example, asks students to design a flag for a socialist nation that uses “symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism,” NBC reports. And one conservative news group has criticized that plan as “an attempt at secretly indoctrinating Texas children,” NBC reports.
Another lesson plan shows a figure walking up a staircase that’s made of money, NBC reports. The term “free enterprise (capitalism)” is written on the bottom step. The word “Communism” is written on the top step. One blogger quoted by NBC characterizes the graphic as “all about portraying communism in a positive light.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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