This is beyond stupid.

The whole point of reading classic literature is that it was written by masters of the language, not political hacks who may or may not even have studied the language in college.

If they want kids to be formally indoctrinated just mandate political indoctrination classes. And then have a special SAT test for it.

So many Must Reads, so little time.

Please don´t give them any ideas Country Boy.

When my son was younger, I remember buying two books to read to him. I started with the Indian in the Cupboard, a fun book, read a few pages and put it down. Then I picked up Rudyard Kipling. The difference in reading those two books, out loud or even to myself, was huge.
I did not realize the gift given to me in my public school when they required us to read and discuss some classic literature, until my son, many years later, went through that same town school system and got no where near the education I was given.

The government has everything against the classics because it causes kids and adults to think for themselves and be open to new ideas. Another scary thing I read here at Lucianne last week was when books disappear, and all we have left are the downloadables, how can we trust that they have not been edited to suit the originator for propaganda purposes? A lot of scary things right now.

They don´t dare teach kids financial literacy out of fear they might learn to be financially independent. It´s amazing the number of kids that go through school and can´t balance their checkbooks. They´ll get mad at the banks for the fees instead of blaming their own carelessness.I´ve only bounced one check inmy entire life and I don´t even keep a ledger or whatever.The stupid fee made an impression on me I´ll never forget.

They also will never teach all the rags to riches stories in this country which could inspire kids to do better.All they want is voting zombies.

#5´s point about downloadables is why I´m buying great books that I think will be important reads in the future just in case they get edited or just disappear.

This started years ago when they turned reading literature into just reading. They got rid of the classic poetry and literature; in its place, they wrote dumb stories that they thought taught students how to "skim and scan". How dumb and boring is that! It is no wonder "Johnny can´t read" and if he can, he hates it.

Another reason to get rid of the Department of re-education !

Seriously friends, get your kids or grandkids out of government schools. It´s worth the sacrifice to homeschool or send to private school. We are conservative in belief, yet how many of us are sending our kids to be taught by teachers trained in Bill Ayers propaganda?

This has been going on for years! When my daughter was a sophomore, I met with the head of the English department to complain about a required reading book: The Drowning of Stephen Jones. I argued that the book was garbage and used garbage language. I questioned him about literature and universal truths . he tried defending the book but eventually admitted to me that the book was garbage! He said that the reason they assign the book is because its impossible to get kids to read the classics.( Dumbing down,perhaps???)
At any rate, a few years later, my son (a Rush Baby)had this person as his AP English teacher. Turns out the guy is an admitted socialist . The upside is that my son , even as a teen,could identify socialism and communism. The downside is that this leftist propaganda virus has been around long enough to infect several generations.

More socialist Democrat brainwashing of our kids. Educated people, who have their heads screwed on right, are a threat and very intimidating to Democrats. It is easier to manipulate the gullible and illiterate.

This is the face of Communism. You´re in it at the beginning. It goes downhill from here.

Well -- I wouldn´t worry to much....

If you tell a teenager they can´t read something -- that´s the FIRST thing they´ll read....

Stop with the "sky is falling" all day long. WE are not stupid out here.....

LZK

FTA:Proponents of downgrading the teaching of literature claim that their goal is to make sure U.S. students can read and understand complicated texts.

Good. There are plenty of complicated science texts that are already there in school. Let them read and understand them. Then maybe we will be able to compete with the rest of the world in science.

They get enough propaganda watching TV.

Have you all heard the news?
The New York City Public Library (the main branch) is going to move its books to New Jersey.
The building is not stylish, they claim.
So all the stacks must be removed.
To get a book, you will have to request it and wait.
It will be a library without books.

Only in America!

Save the 42nd Street Library!

FTA:

Proponents of downgrading the teaching of literature claim that their goal is to make sure U.S. students can read and understand complicated texts. But there are plenty of complicated texts that don’t amount to political propaganda, much less propaganda relating to current hot-button policy issues in which the Obama administration is heavily invested. If teaching students how to read such texts were the only goal here, the list of exemplar tests wouldn’t include one-sided political tracts about health care and the environment.

Good point. If reading skills could be sharpened by the use of government text, why not assign high schoolers excerpts from the United States tax codes?

Low Information Voters 101.

The Left has been indoctrinating the kids for years! It starts with C.Columbus in elementary school.

Now it is firmly institutionalized -
The answer is MONEY, what´s the question.

One advantage classic literature has over "information text" is that it can examine its protagonists´ motives in great detail, something that mere reporting can only guess at. The best literature reveals the human condition, laying out not only the foundations for our more noble characteristics, but the reasons why some people choose to lie, cheat, steal and kill. In real life, it´s hardly ever easy to completely answer the "why" question (the reason criminal prosecutors are not required to prove motive), but the fiction reader will understand that, even if the answer to the question "why" is often obscure, it still exists and needs to be explored.

I wonder what they´re using to teach the definition of propaganda? When I was in school many years ago, the concept was limited to commercial advertising strategies. Now the examples are in literature assignments? Glad we home school our kids!

Radicals think most of the great writing here occurred before the Civil War and between the two World Wars. In the 20th century most of the great writers already were socialists or "Americans in exile". This thinking has progressed to the idea that everyone is an artist and a star. Fairness at work. Artists used to believe that their great calling was to stand alone if necessary, and protect society from becoming too much like its worst members. But society has been to college and has been educated towards incompetent leftism. Today writing merit has everything to do with politics. Art has devolved into provocation for the hell of it. Which is not to say that that is not art. It is to say it is art called out of a decadent instrument, and applauded by a decadent patron, and a stoned and spiritually bankrupt culture that has been told it is unacceptable to be judgmental.

That cute little monkey, Curious George, is my example of the dumbing down of literature. In the 1960s each page of the story had several paragraphs about George´s adventures, by the 1990s there were only a couple of sentences on a page. Did children get dumber from 1960 to 1990, or did the wizards of smart dumb down the text so that non-readers could succeed?

The Left at work every day, destroying intellectual curiosity, dumbing down children so they are easier to mold into little Leftists. Past time to halt and reverse this trend.

I don´t think there is a political agenda in the Common Core standards. There is a problem with political correctness in assignment of literature to read. It sort of boils down to the problem that most classic literature was written by White Anglo-Saxon men and the only way to make the readings from all groups equal is to eliminate huge amounts of the classics. AP Language stresses the ability to write argumentative essays and there is nothing wrong with reading any type of political essay as long as you can write an essay about why you disagree with it.

The Founders, when separating church and state, should have also separated government and education. It is for us now to do so.

I blame it all on Cliff´s Notes.

No one under 45 has been taught to recognize propaganda. We were shown movies of Pravda and the TASS News Agency, and told how lucky we were! Now, our country is being propagandized and they can´t even see it!

Fear not parents! Your Young Pioneers will receive the best indoctrination that union-thug, indifferently educated, listless paper-shufflers can provide. Sure there are still marvelous teachers in the public schools; but they are becoming the exception, not the rule. Most care as much about your child´s ultimate future, as the Oakland docks clerical union workers cared if goods made it through to consumers; it´s all about more pay for less work, under better conditions and---oh yeah!---no accountability. The union way.

If you are a parent or grandparent pick two or three books a year to read with the children in your family. May I recommend that you pick from the "banned book list" of literary classics? I did it for my own children and now my grandchildren. It´s a wonderful experience.

Oh, and then they can go to school and take those stupid AR tests for the book and get oodles of points for the reading.

Dreams of My Father has replaced Shaekespeare, It Takes A Village has replaced The Great Gatsby

I doubt any of the complex, challenging text they give kids to read will be Hayak or Friedman. Just a guess.

When my kids were still at home, I used to require them to make a summer reading list. The list had to include at least one classic (Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid), one by Dickens, one play by Shakespeare, one history, etc. Then I´d pay them a dollar for each book when they finished all the books on their list.

Now I´ve learned that my oldest daughter requires her kids to make summer reading lists...

Frighteningly nauseating. Yet another few generations of liberally-indoctrinated kids who grow up to be Obama & Co.

Will no one put a stop to this? Or must we ALL secede? Secession becomes more and more attractive as time passes.

Since the early 20thc the left has been doing its best to destroy education. It´s the one thing at which they have actually succeeded.

We´ve come a long way since The New England Primer. The founders would be shocked at today´s education system.

I graduated from the same high school my mom did; that was 10 years ago. I was in Honors English, but my mom was always amazed that the stuff I was doing was the stuff she did in regular English during the 70´s. They really are dumbing down the education system. If/when my hubby and I have kids, they will be home schooled, I will not trust liberal socialists with any child of mine.

Little Red Book of Chairman Obama

It´s the parents fault. Kid´s a lazy and don´t want to learn. Sarcasm

This is the sort of thing that happens when you put the "ignoranti" in office.

I was an English major in college (classical studies minor). There´s a great book that everyone should read:

The Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye.

It´s described at Amazon as: Addressed to educators and general readers—the "consumers of literature" from all walks of life—this important new book explores the value and uses of literature in our time. Dr. Frye offers, in addition, challenging and stimulating ideas for the teaching of literature at lower school levels, designed both to promote an early interest and to lead the student to the knowledge and kaleidoscopic experience found in the study of literature.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

-George Orwell

#34 Arby--it seems to me they are succeeding at nearly everything these days.........

Educational political indoctrination has been going on for decades. I am 61 and I can remember several teachers in junior high school who were radical leftists. But, we were still taught to read and think independently, unlike today. Moreover, we were still taught our country´s history the good and the bad. Today if our history is taught, I suspect it is only the bad.
Also, our parents continued our education at home. My parents provided the balance to those radical teachers.

The leftist agenda is pushed as we know in the news, in movies, TV sitcoms, commercials, you name it. So, people are inundated with the leftist message. And the November 6 elections showed that.

Until we can take back the educational system and provide some balance in the various media forums, I am not sure how we bring our country back. This election was our chance. Our resolve will be truly tested over the next few years.

Are the common core subjects dictated by the regime going to be written in Ebonics?

Poster #25: The Founders...should have also separated government and education.

The Founders taught their children at home until they reached the level of university, the Founders could not imagine the government being involved in schooling any more than they could conceive an income tax. Remember there is no authorization for a Department of Education in the Constitution.

Children were taught to read the Bible, then McGuffy´s readers. For many, many decades teachers were young, unmarried women who were given "room and board" by moving from one parents´ home to another through the school year, with a very small stipend.

I volunteer with the local Friends of the Library, we hold an annual booksale, ours has grown to one of the largest in the country, with over a quarter million books for sale. We have tons of books on every subject...classics, best seller fiction, home school educational, history, science, math, biographies, etc. Check with your library, go to their sale, volunteer and purchase the printed books that are available for a pittance compared to your bookstore or Amazon.

this has been going on for more than two generations. Pat Buchanan warned of it over 40 years ago in the speeches he wrote for Vice-President Agnew. He was ignored. Then 20 years ago, it started being put into place (see Kimball Tenured Radicals among other books) and it was still ignored. And now sedition is the official line. Sorry to say, the Republicans (particularly both Bushes) promoted the idea that the federal government should be involved in local school issues and that gave a huge boost to this anti-American philosophy. It´s over folks. We were warned many many years ago and we fiddled while rome burned. It´s burned down now. One day, generations hence, people will record what a great country this was for about 190 years. I am grateful that at least I saw a little of her greatness when I was a boy.

1. Leftist advocates went heavily into journalism, education, gov´t [especially unaccountable bureaucratic sinecures], and "charitable" foundations [doing "good" -- pushing the Leftist agenda -- with other people´s money is s-o-o-o much easier than earning it yourself]. Each institution has declined horribly.

2. Without dumbing-down, major dumbing-down, professional educationists would be instantly exposed. And we could never have the Utopia where "all the children are above-average."

3. So, I guess Guy Montag is the next "recess" appointment?

"Well, Montag, take my word for it, I´ve had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing! Nothing you can teach or believe. they´re about nonexistent people, figments of imagination, if they´re fiction. And if they´re nonfiction, it´s worse, one professor caling another an idiot, one philosopher screaming down another´s gullet. All of them running about, putting out the stars and extinguishing the sun. You come away lost."
~~Fire Chief Beatty

4. The guerrilla´s weapons -- The Gutenberg Project; Amazon [esp. free downloads]; and local used book stores.

Great books, the kind that those dead white Euro guys wrote, had great ideas.

Can´t have that.

I used to think that "Fahrenheit 451" was fiction. I´m starting to think it was a prophecy. Remember, Heinrich Heine (in 1821) "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."

The Closing of the American Mind by Bloom is excellent on this subject.

Valuable lessons learned from experiences throughout history have always been communicated and passed down through generations verbally, the written word, movies & etc., ...´´the media.´´ Those beneficial lessons, thus already tested & tried, always have served to prepare humanity for a better future, as America´s own Constitutional course clearly reveals. Those principles securing individual Liberty, (-Wisdom summerized in The Golden Rule, IMO), has been this country´s courageous goal and have proved their validity. We don´t need to, ´reinvent the wheel,´ regarding securing our freedom!

But, statist pols don´t want anyone to remember anything positive about American history before they became tenured! In fact, today we are beginning to hear just forget Western civilization´s place in history!?! Is this increasingly ruthless attack upon our entire way of life to become as was the burning of the books at Alexandria?!! That seems to be the case with those who demand that children only look, ´´FORWARD!´´ ...What folly is that?!!

Who will champion the equality, the Life and Liberty of each human being and pass that basic principle of respect for others on to future generations if those who busy themselves with erasing American history, indeed world history, and the lessons learned along the way?

Today´s politicized statist media fabricates, lies and spins every word in their relentlous effort to, ´´CHANGE,´´ & remake life in America and, apparently, the world, ...into WHAT? The choice is the same that it has always been, as Mark Levin´s best seller exposes: ´´Liberty or Tyranny.´´ America MUST continue to stand for Liberty, and pass it on to the children!

My kids get to read "Time for Kids" magazine. I spend a lot of time rebutting every other page. The latest is a spread on how polar bears are in endangered and how they can help them by turning off lights and using less energy. This is how they are incrementally creating Obamabots. My kids have me to tell them the truth, but how many others have no one in between defending the truth?

Do future parents think our federal govn will allow you to home school your kids? No chance. Every day a new outrage. The govn has infected every aspect of society. You can`t even chop down a tree in your own backyard without some bureaucrat signing off on it. Indoctrination has become a full contact sport in our public schools and colleges. Since Obamacare seized the college loan program it won`t be long before you are mandated to take prescribed govn approved classes to obtain a degree. Every aspect of your life will be controlled by govn fiat.

Succumb or fight. Time is running out.

People--it´s over. OVER. And anyone who cannot see (yes, LZK-the sky IS falling) that we have begun the Marxist state -- are participants. It´s not "stupid", or whatever, it is MARXISM. And, read Habakkuk. Or any of the old testament. God DOES discipline His people. Interestingly, most of the time He has done so, it is with people from the area of Babylon (current day Iraq/Iran.

Did you know slavery in the US was almost abolished before we gained our independence? The question was put before the First Continental Congress, and it lost by ONE vote. King George III forced slavery on us, we had no choice. (He made far too much money from African kings who willingly supplied him). See, we cannot let the "people" know true history. We must fabricate history to fit our goal of destroying the USA.

First Continental Congress was in 1761. The question of slavery was one of the causes of the Revolution. Have we no cause for Revolution today? Yes, we do, abundantly.

I hate to generalize, but I deal with young 20 year olds daily and encounter others in restaurants, etc. I find a majority of them suffer from what Mo Howard once diagnosed Curly with in a Stooges short: Vacancy of the Cranium. They have no clue about societal issues, economic or historical matters. I blame the schools for this and the government for taking the parent/family out of the education process. They have indoctrinated not educated these kids.

Any parents or grandparents here, go back and read #44...

Our children are our heritage... It´s up to We the People! We are responsible for what they are taught and learn... Don´t get me started!

The left is totally against water boarding but see no problem at all with brainwashing.

Going to assign Munzer?

Race to the Top = 30 pieces of silver. The red state of Tennessee sold out its sovereignty for a budget boosting $400 million. Guess what? Now that $ is gone and everyone is scrambling to get more.