By Danette Clark
Judging from the content of several texts recommended by the Common Core State Standards, it seems apparent that both the creators of the standards and the U.S. Department of Education (by way of its continued endorsement and funding of the standards) consider sex, profanity, and violence to be somehow beneficial to the education of children.
Thanks to a few attentive parents, we know that at least two Common Core Text Exemplars, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia, contain pornography and vulgar language.
For details on these books, go here and here.
Dutchtown High School in the Ascension Parish School District of Louisiana recommended both The Bluest Eye and Dreaming in Cuban to students in 2012 as part of a required summer reading assignment. In addition to these two books, several others on the school’s summer reading list contain sexually explicit material, sexual themes, graphic violence, and profanity. Some of them recommended reading, some required.
As shown in the screen shot above, 11th grade English III AP students were required to read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. This book was previously banned for offensive language and sexually explicit content.
Another required text from the Dutchtown High School list is Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor. Sounds harmless enough (and boring), right? Hardly.
In this book, Foster jumps immediately into race baiting his readers, in the Introduction no less, by comparing white people to the devil.
Many pages, including a chapter titled It’s All About Sex, are dedicated to “finding the sexual component in literature”. Readers are taught to look for sex in everything — such as identifying lances, swords, guns and keys as phallic symbols and chalices, grails and bowls as symbols of female sexual organs.
Unfortunately, CCSSO and the Obama administration have cunningly managed to evade accountability for The Bluest Eye and Dreaming in Cuban by way of liability waivers and by labeling these trash texts as ‘recommended’ and the standards as ‘voluntary’ and ‘state-led’.
States and districts, however, can and should be made accountable for this obvious attack on our children and on parental authority.
As explained here, at the heart of the Common Core State Standards is a political and social agenda. These standards are a means to further infiltrate and then take over schools for the purpose of indoctrinating and controlling our children, a vital step in an attempt to decimate the social and moral fabric of our country.
Ascension Parish has long been a politically conservative district boasting some of the highest performing schools in the State of Louisiana. The district recently ranked 7th out of 70 in the state. Today, however, it appears to be the district most enthusiastic to embrace the morally corrupt agenda of the Common Core State Standards.
Read more about Common Core in Louisiana and Ascension Parish here.
Danette Clark 
Thank you for your continued efforts to educate everyone on Common Core. As I try to pass along this information to my Facebook friends, I feel like it is a lost cause based on the responses I get or do not get. However, losing our freedoms and liberties are not an option for me.
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Yes this is very disturbing. The Bluest Eye is in the St. Amant High School library as of two weeks ago. I called and asked it to be removed but I was told it had won awards. These books have been around before Common Core but if Common core is all about higher standards why do porn books remain. This has got to stop! Our children need to learn Godly morals and ethics not content that fills their minds with lust and hate and immorality.
Have you seen the “counseling sessions” that Ascension parish is making the students be a part of. They are taking children out of class once a month but for some twice a month for 35 minutes to discuss their “feelings”. Most parents are not even aware of this. Also, the schools are sending home fliers that they will offer parenting classes! Parents need to take a stand and let the schools know they (the schools) are not the parents to our children….. we are. They are slowly and subtly trying to minimize our role as parents to our children. I don’t like how they are using our hardworking tax money and trying to take away our authority and contradicting what we teach our children.
I agree. I am putting something together on those ‘counseling sessions’ soon.
I went to a meeting held by The League of Women Voters of Lake County (Ohio) about Common Core. I have written a letter to them with a copy to the local paper about their chosen format of not allowing discussion and only addressing limited written questions. They are treating citizens as sheep by sponsoring lectures not discussions and violating their expressed mission of being “A Voice for Citizens”.
Just out of curiosity, what would you have young adults read? Notice the books with “questionable” content is assigned to upperclassmen and is discussed and dissected under the supervision of highly qualified individuals.
Every piece of literature contains sexual content. Exploring the human condition is the purpose of all literature. Sex is one of humans’ basic needs and desires. It is a complex and often misunderstood act. Most of the literature you pointed out makes a point with it’s graphic scenes that sex can also be destructive and harmful when not used correctly.
“Classics” such as Romeo and Juliet and even the Bible contain extremely graphic sexual scenes.
I am an alumni of Dutchtown High School and a current nursing student at Northwestern State University. I see myself, and peers from Dutchtown and other Ascension Parish high schools, far exceeding the progress of our classmates in the wide variety of Universities we now represent.
Ascension Parish practiced a form of Common Core, known in Louisiana as “Core Four” long before it became a national discussion, and it was that curriculum that pushed us to be one of the top performing districts in the State.
As for the “counseling sessions” that the above poster speaks about, you are completely off point. We meet with faculty who understand our areas of concentration and we talk about our goals and how we intend to get there. Topics often include college or trade school preparation, study habits and career options.
These particular counseling sessions are not at all what you are referring to.
Highly qualified individuals? Many of today’s newest teachers are so grossly under qualified that they don’t even know the real history of this country or that they are at times breaking the law in the classroom.
Further, if you believe reading detailed descriptions of sex has anything at all to do with excelling academically or in any career other than pole dancing, prostitution, or as a sex counselor, then yes, I completely agree Dutchtown was indoctrinating and failing its students long before Common Core.
There are many great literally works out there that do not have the potential to violate a person’s religious or moral beliefs. Had Dutchtown done a better job of teaching the Constitution of the U.S., you would know that. Had you been assigned anything of quality to read, you would also know that The Bluest Eye is far from quality literature and that not every piece of literature contains sexual content, and certainly not blatently obvious sexual content.
I actually did have to read the United States Constitution (although I’m not sure what that has to do with this argument). I was an AP US History student. Sadly enough, the Constitution did not come with a list of suggested “literally works” for me to browse through.
Some of the most basic texts (such as Shakespeare), that have been taught in classrooms for years, have sexually explicit themes and graphic scenes.
Our teachers have never assigned anything blatantly pornographic (such as Fifty Shades of Grey), and while there were a sampling of books that I read in high school that revolved around sex and sexuality there were also numerous other topics and works discussed. Such as greed (The Great Gatsby), women’s empowerment (The Awakening), the injustice of religious persecution and unjust discrimination (The Crucible), the unjust persecution of African Americans in America (To Kill a Mockingbird), the consequences of science overreaching its bounds (Frankenstein), just to name a few.
I think your interpretation of our reading list is extremely mistaken and I would encourage you to look into private or homeschooling as an option for your children.
Also, I forgot to mention many of my teachers at Dutchtown held masters degrees in their areas of study and most of them were nationally certified Advanced Placement instructors, which is upheld by the College Board and supervised by the top Ivy League universities in this country.
I do believe you’re right though, what do the professors at Yale, Princeton and Harvard know that a stay at home mom with no education and a blog doesn’t? I hope you have a great day.
Hahaha! This guy here! So defensive.. He sounds unaccepted and unloved. Moment of silence for his intelligence, it must have died when those AP classes ended.
I didn’t say Dutchtown has not provided a good education along side the regular dose of shameless indoctrination they now provide. Even still, referencing the likes of College Board and Harvard doesn’t help your case. In fact, it confirms a lot.
Ascension Parish/Louisiana’s Core 4 has absolutely nothing to do with Common Core, which was just fully implemented this year and written after 2010. Core 4 simply refers to the courses required for ‘college readiness’ (as opposed to ‘basic’, ‘tops tech’, etc.).
You made a lot of assumptions in your last comment, all of which were wrong (not to mention sexist and oppressive). So if you’re trying to defend your school and come across as well educated, probably not the best way to go about it.
It’s unfortunate that Jude has guessed incorrectly at your profession. I hope you’ll set the record straight so that I don’t make any blanket generalizations like, “Most people in your position suck at their job.” Because that would be rude.
I suppose if you truly do believe that most educators are too ignorant to do their job, wouldn’t it be sensible to spearhead a campaign aimed at reforming teacher training? I understand you have issues with the Common Core curriculum because you feel as if it negatively indoctrinates students; however, for the purposes of staying on topic, I’d like to know your thoughts on just what I’ve presented: teacher training reform.
It seems a bit counter-intuitive to paint the house before you build it, so why bother with challenging the curriculum if you don’t even assume teachers are able to handle any curriculum? It would appear the curriculum is moot at that point.
Furthermore, hypothetically speaking, if you have a child in public schools (again, I would not want to rudely presume something based on false information), would you find it contradictory to send your children to such incompetent pin cushions?
You would have a good point if I had said MOST teachers. I said “many” of the “newest teachers”. I admit I should have futher clarified by stating “many of the newest teachers chosen by John White”. There are thousands of wonderful teachers in Louisiana and many at Dutchtown High School. There are also many teachers being trained by the liberal minded for the purpose of indoctrinating students with and absent Common Core. Just because I’m faulting the school for recommending offensive books to underaged students doesn’t mean I am disparraging all teachers at that school. I don’t know who is responsible for that book list. If you think parents should shut their mouths and have no say in what their children are exposed to at school because some teachers may take it personally, too bad. No teachers are being named or personally attacked because we don’t want the innocent ones hurt in all of this. Lastly, yes, teacher training is an issue that must be addressed, which is why it is on my list and why it has been discussed by others who oppose Common Core. In fact, I’ve researched that issue with regard to Louisiana and know the role Tulane University and several others play here. However, many people have chosen to tackle CCSS first because we know that it presents an eminent threat to local control. If we lose local control, teacher training will be a moot point.
Let me just say this, as it boils down to nothing more than one simple premise: If a parent has a legitimate concern with the text a student is asked to read, then the parent has every right to express that concern.
With that comes obvious consequences, though.
As an English educator, I have never required a student who somehow felt morally jeopardized to read a particular text. In fact, I’ve never heard of that happening. If you have heard of a case (or two), I would hypothesize that it was just that – one or two cases. As someone who prides herself in research and knowing all involved in the Common Core’s evils, you will agree that even that statistic (if existent) is minuscule to the overall argument.
Let’s say you DO disagree with a particular text because you have read, analyzed, and found the specific passages in question and not just read a synopsis or another person’s analysis of the book that highlights just the evil, promiscuous parts.
And let’s say you DO file a complaint with the teacher (not the school, since it would be an insult to not address the “competent teachers” you described in the last post).
At that point, since the parent has stepped in and assumed a position of knowing what’s best, I would ask the parent to come up with alternative texts AND to provide rationale as to why it is of equal value. I would be under the assumption this would be easy because of two reasons: a) the parent would have to have read the entire text in question (and not a mere synopsis) to be able to file an educated, thorough complaint and b) the parent will have researched other options to ensure that the alternative text offers nothing questionable in nature to that child’s morals/ethics/etc., while also being on the same lexile level.
I’m too immersed in reading essays; I’m too engaged in grading tests; I’m too hell-bent on coming up with innovative ideas to reach children with applicable references and allusions; I’m too concerned making sure students can think for themselves, assuming their parents will allow them to do so as well at some point in their lives. What I’m not doing is spending countless hours finding ways to bring up sex, rape, drugs, alcohol, intimacy, back-stabbing, murder for the sake of ensuring your child is desensitized so that he or she thinks it’s okay to do all that. The newspaper, internet, and televisions news broadcasts do that already. I’ll assume your child is also cut off from those avenues because of their blatant exposes on violence. And if your child’s news is filtered, I’ll take solace in knowing your child will not have a jaded view of life in the future. As we know, nothing but positive things happen on a daily basis, so it’s best to ignore anything graphic so that if, by some weird way your child finds himself or herself in the dystopia that is the 2013 world, he or she will be ill-prepared to handle it.
Parents like to know they have a voice. They do. With that comes more of a responsibility and commitment to do the grunt work. If you can ensure that all of this other action is not happening – if you can suggest alternate texts that lack anything questionably – if you can promise me your child will still benefit from the academic questioning/analysis that comes with reading literature, then by all means exercise your right as a parent.
How dare you say parents have to first jump through hoops and do YOUR job before they can have a voice in their children’s education. Further, what children are exposed to or not exposed to at home, and whether they are prepared to handle “the 2013 world” is NONE OF YOUR concern or business.
This is what is wrong with progressive education. So self righteous and anxious to use big words to show how intelligent you think you are, yet you don’t even know the difference between texts that may be offensive to children and that violates their religious and moral beliefs and texts that would not? Give me a break. Do YOUR job without breaking the law and imposing your views on OTHER PEOPLE’S children and stop wasting my time.
Countless educators have somehow managed to choose clean quality literature to teach from for more than 100 years. Those who now suddenly cannot or do not should be fired.
Both anticipated responses. Both not surprising. I am not particularly taken aback by your notion that I need to do MY job. I have heard uneducated assertions such as that in the past, so I do not take offense to it. I know what I do on a daily basis to benefit the children. I definitely do not need the praise and/or admiration from anyone except the children when they off to college, plants, military, or wherever. They are the true gauge of the efficacy (er, effectiveness) of what I do.
I think a parent should have an influence on his or her child’s educational experience. Unfortunately, you deem that extra step as a “hoop,” but “non-progressive education” that you mention (or shall I say “state” so as not to appear pretentious with “big words”) focuses on schools and families working together.
Are you against that notion?
But for some reason, MY job IS impacted by what happens in OTHER PEOPLE’S lives. Children have accommodations based on family/home life situations. Should I do MY job by ignoring that?
It comes with the territory of something else to consider (not “deal with” because that’s a cynical way to look at it). MY job is complicated. I love MY job because it affords me an opportunity to interact with children and guide them down sensible paths. I am fully committed to them.
That’s an entirely different debate, but I do not feel that by asking parents to take a more active role in educational influences is by some way detracting (I mean “taking away”) from my job. If anything, it celebrates the symbiotic structure that “non-progressive” education has revered for years.
I am sorry that you assume I was “wasting your time.”
You job is to teach reading, writing, math, and science, and to communicate to the parents if the child is having discipline or social problems AT SCHOOL. You are not their parent or their life coach. It is this thinking that is going to get the pants sued off of some educators if they aren’t very careful.
I do not disagree with that. I wasn’t implying that I become Oprah’s Life Coach in the middle of class on a daily basis. What I am saying is that what YOU do at home affects HOW I am supposed to handle some students at school. We are literally handed information regarding a child’s issues and have to make every attempt to cater to that. In fact, such accommodations are part of the same law that you mention when you reference the possibility of being sued.
I definitely report any issues I see with children to parents. And just like you, I assume it is YOUR job to take care of that at home so that it is addressed. The problem with that is that not every parent is effective at making sure that change happens. Alas, I am stuck at that point. My job is affected by your job at home. It’s a Catch 22. The difference is, I suppose, that I can lose my job; you’ll never lose your role as parent. I’m not saying this isn’t a bad thing, but what I am saying that it is just as naive to assume that all problems like that can be fixed at home as it is to assume that all teachers do/act/talk/teach in similar and degrading ways.
Also, I’m not sure how self-righteous or eager I am to show how intelligent I am. I consider myself intelligent, so big words are no false pretense. They are a part of my vernacular. (No thesaurus consulted there. Pinky swear.)
In fact, I encourage my students to learn as much vocabulary as they possibly can because, after all, knowledge is power! Or something like that.
Wouldn’t you want an intelligent person teaching your children?
I have extensive knowledge of several types of texts, so I apologize if you misunderstood my suggestion of parental involvement to mean that I am too incompetent to suggest alternatives. Contrary to that incorrect notion, I am quite capable; you may question that idea all you’d like. I wouldn’t mind meeting up with you and discussing literature that these “countless educators” have used for the last 100 years to teach.
Chances are (quite high ones at that), some of those “classics” that we all remember so fondly have provocative images and questionable material You have legitimately grabbed my attention with that comment. Which texts do you speak of if not the classics?
Texts absent pornography (detailed descriptions of sex acts), the promotion of one religion over another, or that do not constitute an attack on a particular religion; and texts that do not promote homosexuality as normal. You know, that don’t violate a person’s constitutional rights/religious beliefs (that pesky law thing again). With millions of books out there, I’m sure a few must qualify. I’m done here.
Thanks for the discourse.
The recent online en masse labeling of Toni Morrison’s writings as “porn” has left me a bit befuddled. After all, she does have a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize for Literature. I am left wondering…after reading all of The Bluest Eye or Beloved or, admittedly my favorite, Song of Solomon how does one deduce that she writes with the sole intention of sexual arousal? The sweeping epic narratives and mystical realism in her works aside, are they really porn? Is that all one focuses on in midst of such, “novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, [that]gives life to an essential aspect of American reality”?
“The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 27 Oct 2013.
I understand that my descriptions of her works will do nothing to quell the fury of parents up in arms over what they perceive as a violation of their rights to have a book on a list. After all, not every student MUST take English IV AP; that is the right of a parent to NOT have their student enrolled in that course. After all, a well-researched parent would know that The Bluest Eye first appeared on the Advanced Placement for Literature exam in 1996 and Song of Solomon in 1981. Why would a parent allow their child to engage in course work at a college level that so blatantly offends the morality, ethics, and religion of their home? This also speaks to the How to Read Literature Like a Professor selection. The course work for this class should require the students to read literature on a college level, as a professor would ask them to do.
My point is this: CCSS and Obama did not have some liberal agenda to infiltrate the sanctity of American homes and a parent’s right to choose what is appropriate for their child back in 1981. It is not “porn.” As elucidated by the poster “Knowledge is Power” sexuality, violence and other aspects of human nature are irrevocably entwined in the literature we create. We are human….we write and read human stories. But our world, our personal lives, our beliefs do not need to reflect that of the literary context which we read. That is what the foundations of parenting and morality and religion is for…to counteract the miasma of human complications of the real and literary world in which our children find themselves. Remember, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~Aristotle
And Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize… what’s your point?
There are no disclaimers or warning lables for parents or students about AP classes or AP content, so do not blame parents. The only thing parents can take the blame for is trusting their local schools and educators with their children.
Unless Aristotle was referring to children, the quote you posted is completely irrelevent. You would think educators, people who chose as their job to fill children’s minds with knowledge, would know something about how a child’s mind works. Before 18 (some now think age 25), the human brain is not fully developed in the areas directly affecting the ability to reason and make wise decisions.
Then again, many educators (and creators of standards and curriculum) do know that, don’t they? Afterall, brainwashing is much more effective when dealing with the underdeveloped minds of children.
You are defending adults pushing pornography on underaged children. People have been arrested for as much in other settings. Yet you believe in the context of education, it’s ok? And parents are to blame for not knowing beforehand that advanced classes come with porn and profanity? Why?? Because students intelligent enough for advanced classes somehow automatically qualify for adult content? What a dark and disturbed way of thinking! This is the last comment I will read, much less approve, from anyone who would defend this disgusting and perverse attack on our kids.
Here is a quote for you — one that does apply to children and comes from someone far wiser than Aristotle:
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Matthew 18:6
Thank you Danette for protecting the children. Brian Massie
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Danette Clark