‘Alaska’ Textbook Misses the Facts
By Don | October 6, 2008
A new "Alaska" textbook riddled with errors only raises the suspicions of conservatives that publishers prefer left-leaning texts.
From Newsminer.com
Alaska is big in the news right now, thanks to Sarah Palin, so schools across the country will probably be looking for books about our state to provide to students. Unfortunately, one of them will likely be a newly released volume titled “Alaska,” part of Children’s Press’ ongoing “America the Beautiful” series.
I say unfortunately for two reasons. One is that the book is plagued by a series of small but persistent errors that should have been caught before it went to press. An even bigger problem however, is that it suffers from a flaw conservative critics frequently level at today’s textbooks: It’s so overrun by political correctness and general fluff that an abundance of essential information has been left on the cutting room floor in order to make room for what, in some cases, is completely superfluous page filler.
We’ll tackle some of the errors first. On page 15 the book’s author, Tamara B. Orr, points to Alaska’s highest peak and tells readers “Although for a time it was called Mt. McKinley, in honor of president William McKinley, in 1975 it was returned to its original name, Denali, an Athabascan word meaning ‘the great one.’” Actually, it was Denali National Park that was renamed, and that happened in 1980. The mountain itself legally retains its presidential moniker, and barring an act of Congress this will remain so.
Two pages later she tells us that in the Interior, “it is not unusual for the temperatures to rise to over 90 degrees F during the summer and plummet to -80ºF in the winter.” Granted, my experience with Interior Alaska is limited — I’ve only been here most of the last 20 years — but having never experienced 80 below, I’d probably consider such a temperature unusual.
Elsewhere in the book she misstates Sarah Palin’s political career — I thought that was John McCain’s job — identifies Juneau as becoming “the state capitol” in 1900 (Alaska wasn’t even a territory at that point, much less a state) and on a governmental chart has state representatives serving four-year terms instead of two years (she does get it right in the text.) And her section on transportation basically ignores aviation, the backbone of Alaska’s transportation system.
The book's editor should have been easily able to fact check the statements in the book but for some reason chose not to making the book worthless to the students.
2 Comments | Post a Comment
Congressional Record—Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.”
THERE’S THE WHY, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT, USSA OR USA?
————————
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/5410
Carson, California, The throngs who showed up to see and hear Republican Vice President candidate Sarah Palin were chanting, “USA! USA!”
Obama supporters on the same scene fomenting for revolution were chanting “No USA! “No USA!”
October 6 at 12:21 pm | #1 | Link
And people wonder why our children are completely ignorant of America’s history and state’s histories, government and civics. First the criminals in our education system made the former mandatory studies of history no longer so, and then they turned around and rewrote the books in PC versions and now the few they teach, they teach lies. And good history teachers, that teach traditional history (the way it was and actually happened), can’t get jobs in the corrupt educational system - I know, I’m one of them.