Publisher’s Point: Why We Should Fight For The Students of Williamson County, Tn

Only about an hour away from us, a battle is boiling in Williamson County, TN, that has gained national attention. It has to do with the use of a public school textbook that is full of anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-American nonsense. It ranges from being innuendo clear to disinformation. Thankfully, Laurie Cardoza-Moore, a woman whom I have come to respect greatly, is not letting this go away, and her hard work, and that of her organization, Proclaiming Justice To The Nations is paying off. Below is part of a press release that came out from PJTN this week bringing the latest update:

“A concerned parent of Williamson County has met the July 23 deadline to appeal the decision of the special committee formed to review the controversial textbook at the center of an ongoing debate that has reached national media attention.

Following review by a special five member Ad Hoc Committee and their decision to retain the textbooks for use in the 2013-2014 school year, the book’s publisher, Pearson Publishers in a surprise development communicated to parents through Williamson County’s School Board Attorney, agreed to remove a highly publicized, controversial passage on terrorism in all future printings and electronic versions of the 10th and 11th editions of book in question: The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography.

The ongoing textbook battle has given Laurie Cardoza-Moore a platform to take the controversy in Williamson County to a larger platform with two recent appearances by her on the Fox News Network highlighting the Tennessee conflict for national viewers.

Awaiting the outcome of this week’s appeal, Cardoza-Moore noted: “This is another example of educators thinking they know what’s best for our children. When parents are aware and engaged in their children’s education, we can have an impact on whether they are exposed to the truths we believe in, or to carefully crafted, falsely represented worldviews and mis-information as presented in textbooks such as the one in question. Even one child being subjected to this kind of propaganda is unacceptable to Williamson County parents.”

The appeal presented to Dr. Mike Looney, Superintendent of Williamson Country Schools, goes on to note:

“Tennessee is not the first or only state to encounter the numerous problematic textbooks in the fields of social studies, geography, and world history. Textbooks that include egregious errors, glaring omissions, questionable inclusions or political, ethnic, cultural and other biases that clearly appear to diminish the Judeo-Christian values that are the basis of our Constitution, the rule of law, the Bill of Rights, and in essence, the cornerstone of our way of life in America. Concerned citizens and parents in Florida have been dealing with the issue for several years including a two-year campaign to document the number of textbooks in which these distortions of truth and fact are commonly found, and have documented them.”

The reason we need to stay on top of this is that number one, it’s happening in places that are consistently thought of as conservative, and, more importantly, it’s just the right thing to do. In a word, we could be next, as unlikely as that may seem, and we have a responsibility to overturn the “bloodless revolution.”

For more information on how to help, please contact www.pjtn.org, or call 877-779-0202
By: Ali Elizabeth Turner