Curriculum Quality
On August 1, 2005, Dr. Mark Chancey, professor of Biblical studies at Southern Methodist University, released a report through the Texas Freedom Network detailing his concerns about the scholarly quality of the curriculum. Chancey stated that the curriculum was improperly sectarian, and contained "shoddy research, factual errors and plagiarism." In particular, Chancey wrote that the curriculum "uses a discredited urban legend that NASA has evidence that two days are missing in time, thus 'confirming' a biblical passage about the sun standing still ;" and that more than one-third of the curriculum's 300 pages are reproduced word-for-word from uncredited sources such as Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia. Hundreds of Biblical scholars] at universities around the United States have signed on as endorsers of Chancey's findings.
The NCBCPS responded with an August 4 press release asking the public to "consider the source." The release described the Texas Freedom Network as "a small group of far left, anti-religion extremists ... desperate to ban one book – the Bible – from public schools.
In a subsequent article, Dr. Chancey wrote:
| “ | As early as August 12, however, the NCBCPS was mailing school districts a revised edition of its curriculum, along with a letter urging them in bold, italicized, underlined letters to 'please discard any previous editions of the curriculum that you may have.' ... Why a purportedly problem-free book that had been published only five months earlier needed to be completely replaced was not explained. | ” |
Robert Marus of the Associated Baptist Press Washington Bureau wrote that the revision of the curriculum "incorporat many of the changes recommended by an organization characterized as 'anti-religion extremists.'"
Read more about this topic: National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools
Famous quotes containing the words curriculum and/or quality:
“If we focus exclusively on teaching our children to read, write, spell, and count in their first years of life, we turn our homes into extensions of school and turn bringing up a child into an exercise in curriculum development. We should be parents first and teachers of academic skills second.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.”
—Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)