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Part of the job of a public school is to provide life tools and advice for students and their families –- on everything from cyberbullying to parenting to general health. (That is, things valued by Leftists. However, there is no desire on our part to accept the author's premise, especially as it serves to provide an excuse for every sort of harebrained leftist "education" program.
If we review the history of public schools we find it yields no principle that schools ought to be a resource for life tools for the families of students. The author wants to position the school as the cultural police, not only for the students in its care, but also to extend its influence, dare we say control, over parents.)
As part of that mission, school guidance counselors often curate a list of resources, some of which can be found on school websites, and even in curriculum. (All such "resources" must pass muster with leftist ideologues.)
But among the resources, one less than reliable source keeps popping up: Focus on the Family. (Aaand, here we have one that doesn't.)
A conservative Christian non-profit, Focus on the Family works to promote right-wing values (that is, values with which the author disagrees.)
in public policy, (Because only leftist values by definition are suitable for public policy.)
including gay conversion, intelligent design creationism, and opposition to certain types of birth control. (That is, the fact that anyone can change if they want to, God created the world and that must not be mentioned, and chemicals that cause a fertilized, fully human fetus to die.)
According to their website, they provide “resources for couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God’s design, and for parents to raise their children according to morals and values grounded in biblical principles.” It’s astonishing that the organization has somehow become a go-to resource on so many different topics for some public schools and even local governments, especially given the legal status quo which mandates the separation of church and state. (It's actually astonishing that given the free rein of leftist to promote their values and mock those who differ, that people still are interested in alternative points of view.)
For the most part, when schools share Focus on the Family materials, it appears to be the work of random staff members, who may not know much about the organization they are promoting. But some schools are actively teaching class using Focus on the Family’s materials. (And we cannot allow a diversity of moral viewpoints...)
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of health class relevant content, but it’s been used as “comprehensive health” education in the sixth grade curriculum of Spartanburg County School District in South Carolina. It’s also used as “Character Education” by Pinellas County School Districtin Largo, Florida.
A video series by Focus on the Family titled McGee and Me has become one of the most obvious examples of the organization’s influence in some school districts. McGee and Me describes itself as “an animated wonder that teaches biblical values.” (Again, we just can't allow people to differ in their moral convictions.)
In one episode, all the bullies hate Christmas because they’re not Christian, and they’re actually bullies because their fathers were alcoholics. In the end, the conflict is resolved when the main character helps his bully find Jesus. (Because we know that Christians are never mocked, derided, or silenced because of their faith...)
“From what we’ve seen of the McGee and Me series, identifying it as ‘Comprehensive Health’… is a stretch,” Chitra Panjabi, President and CEO of the Sexuality Information Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), told ThinkProgress over email. (Yes, of course. A leftist organization would indeed have a problem with someone they disagree with.)
"Any curriculum that bills itself as a ‘Comprehensive Health’ curriculum and does not explicitly deal with sexuality is failing to provide the information and education that young people in this country need.” (Interpretation: "Any curriculum that fails to celebrate promiscuity, homosexuality, and transgenderism cannot be allowed.)
Alongside schools which teach McGee and Me as health, the other ways many schools promote Focus on the Family seems relatively innocuous. It’s unclear how many parents and students are actually reached through school websites, but these smaller violations of the Constitution’s First Amendment, which prohibits government promotion of religion, still add up. (Let's quote the Amendment:
“I always find it annoying when public institutions refer people to Focus on the Family,” said Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s Rob Boston, (Well of course. A guy who hates religion and Christians would be annoyed. Actually, not just annoyed, but hostile.)
who pointed out that even when we weren’t talking about Focus on the Family’s broader role in the culture wars, they still promoted problematic practices. Focus on the Family “tells parents it’s alright to beat their kids (Documentation, please.)
and promotes gender roles from the 19th century,” he said. (That is, gender roles based on the whole of recorded history, roles with a functional basis in that they provide the sexual interaction necessary to perpetuate the human species. And for this and other crimes, Focus on the Family cannot be permitted to have this hateful position.)
Focus on the Family’s own materials make it clear that it does condone hitting children. (Whoa, I thought they were in favor of beating children?)
A parenting guide on child discipline from the organization, titled The Biblical Approach to Spanking, includes tips like, “When you spank, use a wooden spoon or some other appropriately sized paddle and flick your wrist. That’s all the force you need.” It also says, “It ought to hurt — an especially difficult goal for mothers to accept — and it’s okay if it produces a few tears and sniffles.” (Spanking, a totally non-controversial and effective method of parental discipline for dozens of centuries, is now a point of contention.)
And there’s a ton of places that recommend Focus on the Family as a health or parenting resource.
Wright County in Minnesota put together a Children’s Resource Guide, where they list Focus on the Family alongside the CDC and the Wright County Department of Public Health as a tool for “general [disease] prevention.”
Lafayette High School in Lexington, Kentucky, recommends Focus on the Family as a resource that “evaluates spiritual gifts as well as intellectual abilities” to help students choosing colleges.
Thompson Elementary in San Bernardino, California, suggests checking out the organization’s website for “parenting training.” Wren Elementary in Piedmont, South Carolina recommends Focus on the Family for advice about families and family protection. Centerville School District in Sand Coulee, Montana, provides “parent information” in the form of a link to Citizen Link, the local Focus on the Family affiliate, explaining the group is “a family advocacy organization that inspires men and women to live out biblical citizenship that transforms culture.” (Not only is Focus on the Family providing resources based on their world view which is founded upon millennia of historical precident, they, unlike the left, aren't even hiding. You see, the Left sneaks their worldview in, using innocuous phrases lie equality, fairness, diversity, and tolerance. You will note the author intends to reduce diversity, doesn't tolerate those who differ, and isn't fair when it comes to those he differs with. Thus, he wants those who don't toe the line to be treated unequally.)
Pennsylvania’s Virtual Academy Charter School cites Focus on the Family to differentiate between chores, like dusting, and life skills like balancing a checkbook. They also cite the controversial Rabbi Schmuley Boteach to urge parents to assign chores. (Wait, a rabbi? I thought Focus on the Family was guilty of promoting sectarian perspectives? A rabbi would be Jewish, which is an entirely different religion!)
An Oklahoma City Public Schools Education special education guide also cites Focus on the Family materials to help define what chores to do at what ages. This guide is apparently being used by Pascagoula-Gautier School District in Mississippi as well. (No mention of whether the contents of this curriculum is valuable, insightful, or useful. It is enough, apparently, that the source is religious.)
ThinkProgress reached out to Focus on the Family to understand why so many schools are using their materials, but didn’t get any clear answers. (That is, he wasn't able to hang some sort of secret theocratic agenda on them based on their responses.)
“Our materials are available online and so while I suspect some schools have used them, we don’t have a way to track it,” said Paul Batura, Vice President of Communications for Focus on the Family.
Still, Batura pointed out that most of Focus on the Family’s resources are dedicated to creating the type of religiously oriented family and parenting materials these schools are using. “The advocacy side is what usually garners the most headlines due to the controversial nature of the subjects,” he said. “In fact, 95 percent of our budget is devoted to this type of work.” (I thought the author said he didn't get any clear answers? Seems clear enough to me.)
No matter which Focus on the Family message these materials are spreading, whether it’s anti-gay or just religious parenting and discipline, they’re not resources that should be promoted by public schools or the government. (Until someone challenges a library book or something. Then censorship is evil and improper.)
Focus on the Family’s agenda when it comes to public schools is less innocuous than Batura implied. According to an “Empowering Parents” guide by Focus on the Family’s “True Tolerance” project, the organization is concerned with monitoring things like “sexually explicit instruction [in health class] or the promotion of concepts like same-sex relationships being taught to children at school.” They warn parents to check school websites for buzzwords like “tolerance,” “anti-bullying,” and “family diversity,” which could signify that the school is tolerant of LGBTQ students. They also suggest providing school administrators with their “model school policies provided on TrueTolerance.org” — a Focus on the Family website — like an anti-transgender “model student physical privacy policy” which if passed by a school district would dictate “in all public schools in this district, restrooms, locker rooms, and showers that are designated for one sex shall be used only by members of that sex.” (Ah, see? Focus on the Family is censorious. Therefore they should be censored.)
“Focus on the Family offers advice on parenting, healthcare and other aspects of family life from a conservative Christian perspective,” said Charles Haynes, Vice President of the Newseum’s Religious Freedom Center. “Although some of the advice does not mention religion, the advice given is framed by the biblical convictions of the organization.” (Um, yeah. All advice by definition contains a perspective.)
“In my view, the religious nature of the advice means that public schools should not be recommending Focus on the Family resources to parents and students,” he said. (Ok, so here's a man, Charles Haynes, who is making moral judgments about an organization because of its moral judgments. Can we ask, is only Mr. Haynes' morality valid? On what basis? Why should we or the public schools accept his morality but not Focus on the Family's?)
Luckily, ThinkProgress was unable to locate any school districts using Focus on the Family’s policies, but the organization is clearly interested — and in some cases succeeding — in being a resource to public schools in order to promote their right-wing Christian ideological agenda. (And the Left, as we have seen, is promoting a contrary agenda. Why is the author's agenda to be preferred over Focus on the Family's? On what moral basis? On what logical, educational, or constitutional basis?)
Unfortunately, because many of the references to Focus on the Family in public schools are so small, it’s hard to get rid of them completely. (And yes, that's the goal. get rid of every reference to Focus on the Family. Censor them. Down the memory hole. We just can't have points of view that differ from the leftist perspective.)
“We would do better to start off by educating people rather than threaten them with lawsuits,” Boston said, describing how to deal with the huge number of tiny infractions. “Some of the officials including this material may truly not know the entirety of [Focus on the Family’s] agenda. The organization’s name sounds innocuous, after all.” (Aww, go ahead and sue them. That's what the Left does, doesn't it? they love to force people to do things. The Left loves to control and intimidate people. They hate, absolutely hate, people who disagree with them. Any and all effort must be expended to silence those who threaten the leftist status quo.)
Whether Focus on the Family wins or loses major public policy battles over gay marriage or birth control, it seems they are still, in large and small ways, influencing what public school students are learning. (And we can't have that. No, we are trying to raise new generation of good little leftist drones who will never question authority, who will be cowed into silence rather than express an opinion contrary to the predilection of the ideological gatekeepers.
Such it is in the leftist utopian society.)
Part of the job of a public school is to provide life tools and advice for students and their families –- on everything from cyberbullying to parenting to general health. (That is, things valued by Leftists. However, there is no desire on our part to accept the author's premise, especially as it serves to provide an excuse for every sort of harebrained leftist "education" program.
If we review the history of public schools we find it yields no principle that schools ought to be a resource for life tools for the families of students. The author wants to position the school as the cultural police, not only for the students in its care, but also to extend its influence, dare we say control, over parents.)
As part of that mission, school guidance counselors often curate a list of resources, some of which can be found on school websites, and even in curriculum. (All such "resources" must pass muster with leftist ideologues.)
But among the resources, one less than reliable source keeps popping up: Focus on the Family. (Aaand, here we have one that doesn't.)
A conservative Christian non-profit, Focus on the Family works to promote right-wing values (that is, values with which the author disagrees.)
in public policy, (Because only leftist values by definition are suitable for public policy.)
including gay conversion, intelligent design creationism, and opposition to certain types of birth control. (That is, the fact that anyone can change if they want to, God created the world and that must not be mentioned, and chemicals that cause a fertilized, fully human fetus to die.)
According to their website, they provide “resources for couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God’s design, and for parents to raise their children according to morals and values grounded in biblical principles.” It’s astonishing that the organization has somehow become a go-to resource on so many different topics for some public schools and even local governments, especially given the legal status quo which mandates the separation of church and state. (It's actually astonishing that given the free rein of leftist to promote their values and mock those who differ, that people still are interested in alternative points of view.)
For the most part, when schools share Focus on the Family materials, it appears to be the work of random staff members, who may not know much about the organization they are promoting. But some schools are actively teaching class using Focus on the Family’s materials. (And we cannot allow a diversity of moral viewpoints...)
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of health class relevant content, but it’s been used as “comprehensive health” education in the sixth grade curriculum of Spartanburg County School District in South Carolina. It’s also used as “Character Education” by Pinellas County School Districtin Largo, Florida.
A video series by Focus on the Family titled McGee and Me has become one of the most obvious examples of the organization’s influence in some school districts. McGee and Me describes itself as “an animated wonder that teaches biblical values.” (Again, we just can't allow people to differ in their moral convictions.)
In one episode, all the bullies hate Christmas because they’re not Christian, and they’re actually bullies because their fathers were alcoholics. In the end, the conflict is resolved when the main character helps his bully find Jesus. (Because we know that Christians are never mocked, derided, or silenced because of their faith...)
“From what we’ve seen of the McGee and Me series, identifying it as ‘Comprehensive Health’… is a stretch,” Chitra Panjabi, President and CEO of the Sexuality Information Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), told ThinkProgress over email. (Yes, of course. A leftist organization would indeed have a problem with someone they disagree with.)
"Any curriculum that bills itself as a ‘Comprehensive Health’ curriculum and does not explicitly deal with sexuality is failing to provide the information and education that young people in this country need.” (Interpretation: "Any curriculum that fails to celebrate promiscuity, homosexuality, and transgenderism cannot be allowed.)
Alongside schools which teach McGee and Me as health, the other ways many schools promote Focus on the Family seems relatively innocuous. It’s unclear how many parents and students are actually reached through school websites, but these smaller violations of the Constitution’s First Amendment, which prohibits government promotion of religion, still add up. (Let's quote the Amendment:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."Do you see anywhere in there the word "promote?" Do you see the word "government?" The author's "interpretation" of the First Amendment would be unrecognizable to those who wrote it.)
“I always find it annoying when public institutions refer people to Focus on the Family,” said Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s Rob Boston, (Well of course. A guy who hates religion and Christians would be annoyed. Actually, not just annoyed, but hostile.)
who pointed out that even when we weren’t talking about Focus on the Family’s broader role in the culture wars, they still promoted problematic practices. Focus on the Family “tells parents it’s alright to beat their kids (Documentation, please.)
and promotes gender roles from the 19th century,” he said. (That is, gender roles based on the whole of recorded history, roles with a functional basis in that they provide the sexual interaction necessary to perpetuate the human species. And for this and other crimes, Focus on the Family cannot be permitted to have this hateful position.)
Focus on the Family’s own materials make it clear that it does condone hitting children. (Whoa, I thought they were in favor of beating children?)
A parenting guide on child discipline from the organization, titled The Biblical Approach to Spanking, includes tips like, “When you spank, use a wooden spoon or some other appropriately sized paddle and flick your wrist. That’s all the force you need.” It also says, “It ought to hurt — an especially difficult goal for mothers to accept — and it’s okay if it produces a few tears and sniffles.” (Spanking, a totally non-controversial and effective method of parental discipline for dozens of centuries, is now a point of contention.)
And there’s a ton of places that recommend Focus on the Family as a health or parenting resource.
Wright County in Minnesota put together a Children’s Resource Guide, where they list Focus on the Family alongside the CDC and the Wright County Department of Public Health as a tool for “general [disease] prevention.”
Lafayette High School in Lexington, Kentucky, recommends Focus on the Family as a resource that “evaluates spiritual gifts as well as intellectual abilities” to help students choosing colleges.
Thompson Elementary in San Bernardino, California, suggests checking out the organization’s website for “parenting training.” Wren Elementary in Piedmont, South Carolina recommends Focus on the Family for advice about families and family protection. Centerville School District in Sand Coulee, Montana, provides “parent information” in the form of a link to Citizen Link, the local Focus on the Family affiliate, explaining the group is “a family advocacy organization that inspires men and women to live out biblical citizenship that transforms culture.” (Not only is Focus on the Family providing resources based on their world view which is founded upon millennia of historical precident, they, unlike the left, aren't even hiding. You see, the Left sneaks their worldview in, using innocuous phrases lie equality, fairness, diversity, and tolerance. You will note the author intends to reduce diversity, doesn't tolerate those who differ, and isn't fair when it comes to those he differs with. Thus, he wants those who don't toe the line to be treated unequally.)
Pennsylvania’s Virtual Academy Charter School cites Focus on the Family to differentiate between chores, like dusting, and life skills like balancing a checkbook. They also cite the controversial Rabbi Schmuley Boteach to urge parents to assign chores. (Wait, a rabbi? I thought Focus on the Family was guilty of promoting sectarian perspectives? A rabbi would be Jewish, which is an entirely different religion!)
An Oklahoma City Public Schools Education special education guide also cites Focus on the Family materials to help define what chores to do at what ages. This guide is apparently being used by Pascagoula-Gautier School District in Mississippi as well. (No mention of whether the contents of this curriculum is valuable, insightful, or useful. It is enough, apparently, that the source is religious.)
ThinkProgress reached out to Focus on the Family to understand why so many schools are using their materials, but didn’t get any clear answers. (That is, he wasn't able to hang some sort of secret theocratic agenda on them based on their responses.)
“Our materials are available online and so while I suspect some schools have used them, we don’t have a way to track it,” said Paul Batura, Vice President of Communications for Focus on the Family.
Still, Batura pointed out that most of Focus on the Family’s resources are dedicated to creating the type of religiously oriented family and parenting materials these schools are using. “The advocacy side is what usually garners the most headlines due to the controversial nature of the subjects,” he said. “In fact, 95 percent of our budget is devoted to this type of work.” (I thought the author said he didn't get any clear answers? Seems clear enough to me.)
No matter which Focus on the Family message these materials are spreading, whether it’s anti-gay or just religious parenting and discipline, they’re not resources that should be promoted by public schools or the government. (Until someone challenges a library book or something. Then censorship is evil and improper.)
Focus on the Family’s agenda when it comes to public schools is less innocuous than Batura implied. According to an “Empowering Parents” guide by Focus on the Family’s “True Tolerance” project, the organization is concerned with monitoring things like “sexually explicit instruction [in health class] or the promotion of concepts like same-sex relationships being taught to children at school.” They warn parents to check school websites for buzzwords like “tolerance,” “anti-bullying,” and “family diversity,” which could signify that the school is tolerant of LGBTQ students. They also suggest providing school administrators with their “model school policies provided on TrueTolerance.org” — a Focus on the Family website — like an anti-transgender “model student physical privacy policy” which if passed by a school district would dictate “in all public schools in this district, restrooms, locker rooms, and showers that are designated for one sex shall be used only by members of that sex.” (Ah, see? Focus on the Family is censorious. Therefore they should be censored.)
“Focus on the Family offers advice on parenting, healthcare and other aspects of family life from a conservative Christian perspective,” said Charles Haynes, Vice President of the Newseum’s Religious Freedom Center. “Although some of the advice does not mention religion, the advice given is framed by the biblical convictions of the organization.” (Um, yeah. All advice by definition contains a perspective.)
“In my view, the religious nature of the advice means that public schools should not be recommending Focus on the Family resources to parents and students,” he said. (Ok, so here's a man, Charles Haynes, who is making moral judgments about an organization because of its moral judgments. Can we ask, is only Mr. Haynes' morality valid? On what basis? Why should we or the public schools accept his morality but not Focus on the Family's?)
Luckily, ThinkProgress was unable to locate any school districts using Focus on the Family’s policies, but the organization is clearly interested — and in some cases succeeding — in being a resource to public schools in order to promote their right-wing Christian ideological agenda. (And the Left, as we have seen, is promoting a contrary agenda. Why is the author's agenda to be preferred over Focus on the Family's? On what moral basis? On what logical, educational, or constitutional basis?)
Unfortunately, because many of the references to Focus on the Family in public schools are so small, it’s hard to get rid of them completely. (And yes, that's the goal. get rid of every reference to Focus on the Family. Censor them. Down the memory hole. We just can't have points of view that differ from the leftist perspective.)
“We would do better to start off by educating people rather than threaten them with lawsuits,” Boston said, describing how to deal with the huge number of tiny infractions. “Some of the officials including this material may truly not know the entirety of [Focus on the Family’s] agenda. The organization’s name sounds innocuous, after all.” (Aww, go ahead and sue them. That's what the Left does, doesn't it? they love to force people to do things. The Left loves to control and intimidate people. They hate, absolutely hate, people who disagree with them. Any and all effort must be expended to silence those who threaten the leftist status quo.)
Whether Focus on the Family wins or loses major public policy battles over gay marriage or birth control, it seems they are still, in large and small ways, influencing what public school students are learning. (And we can't have that. No, we are trying to raise new generation of good little leftist drones who will never question authority, who will be cowed into silence rather than express an opinion contrary to the predilection of the ideological gatekeepers.
Such it is in the leftist utopian society.)
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