Penny Starr
CNSNews.com
8/2/2011
(CNSNews.com) – During a July event at the U.S. Department of Education, children from D.C. schools and day care centers were treated to free books, including two featuring Nickelodeon characters as part of the media organization’s “The Big Green Help” Series. One of the books promotes the idea that global warming is man made and the second book talks about what kids can do to save the Earth.
SpongeBob Goes Green! An Earth-Friendly Adventure! tells the story of SpongeBob’s friend, Krusty Krab, who builds a swimming pool. Mr. Krab is frustrated that it is not hot enough to attract paying customers to his new swimming pool and decides that the exhaust from boats and cars could solve his dilemma.
Mr. Krab says: “I’m just pumpin’ a wee bit of carbon dioxide into the air. It’ll warm up the temperature and bring on an endless summer! People will want to use my new pool all year long.”
To help with his cause, SpongeBob and his friend Patrick set stacks of tires on fire.
“More smoke floated up into the sky,” the book states.
The author does not explain how a pool is built underwater, how vehicles submerged in the ocean can produce exhaust, or how tires burn and send smoke into the air from the bottom of the sea.
But the book does explain the dangers of global warming…
…Dora Celebrates Earth Day! was also offered to the children by the Department of Education at the July 20 event, with character Dora the Explorer telling her friends and family “what they can do to save the Earth.”…
…The DOE event also featured department officials, celebrity chef Spike Mendelsohn, and President Barack Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng reading Todd Parr’s “The Peace Book.”…
Read the complete article at CNSNews.com
Update: Public education – gov’t not keen on flexibility
The Heritage Foundation recently hosted a forum to examine the federal government’s overreach into the public school system with its “Common Core State Standards” initiative.
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott, a keynote speaker at the event, says Washington has no authority to control state education programs.
“There is a statutory prohibition against the Department of Ed. developing, adopting, endorsing, or scrutinizing state curricula or local curricula,” he reports. “How do they do this, then? Well, they’re doing it under the stimulus act; they’re not doing it under ‘No Child Left Behind.'”
Scott and others at the forum said state education leaders need flexibility to spend funds and adopt policies that best meet their individual needs. But as Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research points out, that is not the case…
