Criticism and Controversy
In 1992, Applied Materials settled a lawsuit for an estimated $600,000. The lawsuit claimed that the three former employees who filed the lawsuit had been driven out of the company because they had complained about the seminars Applied Scholastics had been contracted to teach there. Applied Scholastics said regarding the case, "In ten years of business, we've never had anything come up like this."
In 1998, the group submitted five of its books for approval as supplemental classroom texts to the California Department of Education. The review board found no religious content to object to, although they did object to the lack of portrayals of disabled persons and people of color. The Southern California American Civil Liberties Union, however, objected on the basis that the books used many of the terms and concepts that the Church of Scientology uses elsewhere in its Study Tech.
In the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Applied Scholastics convinced the principal of Prescott Middle School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to implement a program of Study Tech. Critics worried that the move was "an insidious plan ultimately aimed at promoting Scientology." However, Prescott's principal and two education experts claimed that they "saw hidden Scientology agenda or proselytizing in the text." The school's principal felt that the program was worthwhile. In October 2005, St. Louis Public Schools superintendent Creg Williams discovered the group's Scientology connections and immediately put out the word to area principals to cease working with Applied Scholastics. Additionally, CEO Bennetta Slaughter falsely claimed a "partnership" with the Hazelwood School District in St. Louis.
Some parents were upset when Applied Scholastics methods were introduced in September 2008 at Bambolino Montessori Academy, a private school in Toronto. The owner/principal and dean of the school are both Scientologists but they say that Applied Scholastics is secular and that they do not teach Scientology.
Read more about this topic: Applied Scholastics
Famous quotes containing the words criticism and/or controversy:
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)