Author Topic: Obama biography, required reading, tells fourth-graders that white Americans are racists  (Read 1117 times)

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Offline flowers

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http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/22/obama-biography-required-reading-tells-fourth-graders-that-white-americans-are-racists/

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Some parents in Dupo, Ill. are not happy that a biography of President Barack Obama is required reading for fourth-graders. They say the book contains a host of controversial elements, not least of which is that it casts white Americans who disagree with Obama’s politics as racist.

Fourth-grade students at Bluffview Elementary School were instructed that they would be tested and graded on the book’s contents, reports EAGnews.org.

The book, called simply “Barack Obama,” is published by Lerner Publications. The author, Jane Sutcliffe, appears to specialize in these kinds of biographies. She has written similar titles about Jesse Owens, Ronald Reagan, Sacagawea and Milton Hershey.

The kerfuffle about the book originally bubbled up through a Facebook page called Moms Against Duncan (MAD). The group actively opposes implementation of the Common Core curriculum.

EAGNews notes that the Obama book is part of Scholastic’s “Reading Counts” program and an acceptable title under the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which attempts to standardize various K-12 curricula around the country.

You can view a sample of the bio on Google Books.

The book continually identifies Obama on a first-name basis. It bizarrely blames the evils of television for learning ways “to be black” that are hilariously caricatured, stereotypical and negative.

    When Barry looked in the mirror, he saw a young black man. But he didn’t know how to be black. And no one was there to teach him.

    He decided to act like the black characters he saw on TV. He started acting tough. He cursed. Was that what it meant to be black?

    As he got older, he started smoking and drinking. He tried drugs. Was that what it meant to be black?

It’s not clear if Sutcliffe purposefully conflates being a black American with “acting tough,” cussing, “smoking and drinking” and doing drugs.

Sutcliffe is white, according to her Amazon.com author page.

The Obama biography goes on to charge that white Americans did not want to vote for Obama because of his skin color. However, it neatly explains, America’s 44th president was able to bring everybody together in blissful unity.

    But some people said Americans weren’t ready for that much change. Sure Barack was a nice fellow, they said. But white voters would never vote for a black president. Other angry voices were raised. Barack’s former pastor called the country a failure. God would damn the United States for mistreating its black citizens, he said.

The book then recounts Obama’s March 2008 speech about race.

“Barack decided it was time to speak to Americans about race,” the next paragraph pedantically explains. “Black people and white people were too often angry with one another. All people were going to have to work together to solve the country’s problems. Only in that way could Americans make a more perfect United States.”

It’s not clear if the book’s author believes the United States is now “more perfect” some six years into the Obama presidency.


Online mountaineer

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It bizarrely blames the evils of television for learning ways “to be black” that are hilariously caricatured, stereotypical and negative ...



Ah gots ta stop watchin' da TV! It makes me act lak' a nitwit!
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Offline EC

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You know what really P's me off?

He could have made a massive difference.

Instead, he let the race baiters play.
The universe doesn't hate you. Unless your name is Tsutomu Yamaguchi

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Offline Chieftain

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You know what really P's me off?

He could have made a massive difference.

Instead, he let the race baiters play.

Understand clearly that the turmoil going on in the country right now is exactly the "massive difference" he set out to make.  Everything that is happening is by design.


Offline EC

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Understand clearly that the turmoil going on in the country right now is exactly the "massive difference" he set out to make.  Everything that is happening is by design.

Won't dispute, simply because I can not. Yet you know what I mean.
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More Common Core fun:
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November 23, 2013
Common Core Killing the Creative Spirit
Ann Kane

We wanted proof Common Core has serious shortcomings, and now we have it. A professor of Renaissance English Literature and the Development of Western Civilization at Providence College has begun the process of dissecting student essays promoted as examples of what CC strives for in its standards and subsequent influence on curricula.

Anthony Esolen says the best essay of the bunch has no integrity, just a mechanical spouting of information that contradicts itself. And this essay was subject to teacher reviews. The professor says his disagreement with the essay doesn't have to do with organization or style as these are done well, but with the truth. He asserts that the more "mechanical" writing becomes, the closer it moves to providing an incubator for lies.

From Esolen's article in Crisis Magazine:
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Yet the writer of the best essay in the CCC lot violates these moral directives all the time.  He pretends to know what he cannot possibly know.  He affects certainty without actually troubling to look at what he is certain about. ...

For the mechanics, the crucial thing is that the author presents "evidence" for his claims, and not whether the evidence is really evidence, or whether the pieces of evidence are consistent with one another, or whether the author draws just conclusions from the evidence.  They apply the rubric of their very badly written checklist: the author "develops the topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience's knowledge of the topic.
What kind of substandard standards have education change agents been pushing on schools? Not only have major textbook manufacturers infused their books with Common Core language, but every student in America will be affected because all testing will be CC compliant.

Law Professor Gerard Bradley of Notre Dame recently penned a letter signed by 132 Catholic college professors in opposition to the adoption of Common Core by over 100 Catholic dioceses across the country. Prof. Esolen was one of the signers. Here's an excerpt from the letter describing Esolen's concerns:
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...he [Esolen] "provided testimony to a South Carolina legislative committee on Common Core lamenting its "cavalier contempt for great works of human art and thought, in literary form." He further declared, "We are not programming machines. We are teaching children. We are not producing functionaries, factory-like. We are to be forming the minds and hearts of men and women."
Professor Esolen has promised to continue to investigate the practical details of why Common Core aligned curricula and texts are subpar, and he will keep us posted.
American Thinker
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