2 + 2 = 5

In a disturbing article in the New York Post, Manhattan Institute's scholar Sol Stern describes how math teachers in New York are being taught to use math classes to indoctrinate students on the evils of capitalism and the United States:

March 20, 2007 -- THERE'S a fifth column in New
York City's public schools - radical teachers who openly undermine Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's curriculum mandates and use their classrooms to indoctrinate students in left-wing, anti-American ideology.

One center for this movement is El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice
in Brooklyn, the city's first "social justice" high school. The school's lead
math teacher, Jonathan Osler, is using El Puente as a base from which to
organize a three-day conference in April on "Math Education and Social Justice."

Who are the experts that will give the lessons? Surprise: "Social Justice" education professors. Just what our country needs post-September 11:

Another of the math conference's "experts" is Cathy Wilkerson, an adjunct professor at the Bank Street College of Education. Her only other credential mentioned in the program is that she was a "member of the Weather Underground of the 60s."

Some credential, indeed. On March 6, 1970, she was in a Manhattan townhouse helping to construct a powerful bomb to be planted at a dance attended by civilians on the Fort Dix, N.J., army base. The bomb went off prematurely, destroying the townhouse and instantly killing three of the bomb makers.

The article goes on to describe who is funding this conference and the neat lessons elementary school teachers are learning in "social justice" seminars to teach a captive audience:

The meeting was chaired by Edwin Mayorga, a fourth-grade teacher at PS 87 on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and NYU education professor Bree Pickower. Mayorga urged his fellow teachers to "be political inside the classroom, just as we are outside the classroom. The issues we are up against as we teach for social justice are the mandates of [Mayor] Bloomberg, Klein and No Child Left Behind."

Pickower reminded the teachers of the group's Katrina curriculum, which teachers could use to convince elementary-school students that the hurricane was not really a natural disaster, but an example of endemic American racism. Mayorga described how he had piloted the Katrina curriculum with his fourth graders at PS 87 and pronounced it a big success.

Leaving nothing to chance, the Katrina curriculum provides teachers with classroom prompts designed to illustrate the evils of American capitalism and imperialism. For example, one section of the curriculum is titled, "Two Gulf Wars," and suggests
posing the following question to students: "Was the government unable to respond
quickly to the crisis on the Gulf Coast because the money and personnel were all
being used in Iraq?"

Many of the same "experts" pushing this "social justice" or "anti-anti-social justice" (see post below on "Skewed Perspective") are teaching our future teachers how to teach and indoctrinate the future generation of Americans in teacher's colleges. Many states have a "Social Foundations" requirement for all teachers to be certified, hence another captive audience for Marxists to convince that America is the source of all evil in the world.

Given that David Steiner has proven the overwhelming bias in Social Foundations university classes, perhaps it is time for states to start abolishing this licensure requirement.

"Skewed Perspective"

Chilling news for "social justice" education professors:

LONGMONT — Humans don’t cause global warming, a jury of sixth graders at Trail Ridge Middle School concluded Thursday after hearing opposing arguments from their peers.

“They’re pretty young for this kind of thinking. They did great,” paleontology teacher Ken Poppe said after the 40-minute “trial” in his classroom.

This kind of open democratic open exchange of ideas is taboo to education professors like "anti-anti social justice" (and educational jargon expert) Dan Butin. His education philosophy, like most other "social justice" professors', is that students should only learn from one perspective, one that fosters a socialist utopia in which the past sins of Western Civilization are erased and atoned for by brave young teachers fresh from Social Foundations programs.

The father of this educational philosophy was Paulo Friere who stated:

"What I want to know is whether it's possible to teach biology without discussing social conditions, you see. Is it possible to discuss, to study the phenomenon of life without discussing exploitation, domination, freedom, democracy, and so on. I think that it's impossible. . ."

In other words, subject matter is only taught if it is to further "social justice." Scientific facts are suppressed if students will not think in "socially correct" terms. True history is not taught or misrepresented to support a failed socialist ideology. The canon of great Western literature is replaced by insipid PC feminist and multicultural pap.

Finally, teachers in Social Foundations programs are given only the Left-wing perspective on the value of teaching. The education scholar David Steiner has examined the syllabi at Social Foundations classes at the most prestigious Colleges of Education and proves that "diversity" of perspective is nowhere to be found. In the same article, he undermines and exposes the agenda of Dan Butin and other "social justice" professors.