Islam in America's public schools: Education or indoctrination?

tent materialsWith fatal terrorist attacks on the decline worldwide and al Qaeda apparently in disarray , it would seem a time for optimism in the global war on terrorism.But the war has simply shifted to a different arena. Islamists , or those who believe that Islam is a political and religioussystem that must dominate all others, are focusing less on themilitary and more on the ideological. It turns out that Westernliberal democracies can be subverted without firing a shot. Nowhere is this more evident than in the educational realm.Islamists have taken what's come to be known as the "soft jihad"into America's classrooms and children in K-12 are the firstcasualties. Whether it is textbooks, curriculum, classroomexercises, film screenings, speakers or teacher training, publiceducation in America is under assault. Capitalizing on the post-9/11 demand for Arabic instruction, somepublic, charter and voucher-funded private schools areinappropriately using taxpayer dollars to implement a religious curriculum. They are also bringing inoutside speakers with Islamist ties or sympathies. As a result, notonly are children receiving a biased education, but possibleviolations of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause abound.Consider the following cases: Last month, students at Friendswood Junior High in Houston were required to attend an "Islamic Awareness" presentation during class time allotted forphysical education. The presentation involved two representativesfrom the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organization with a record of Islamist statements and terrorism convictions.According to students, they were taught that "there is one God, hisname is Allah" and that "Adam, Noah and Jesus are prophets."Students were also taught about the Five Pillars of Islam and howto pray five times a day and wear Islamic religious garb. Parentswere not notified about the presentation and it wasn't until anumber of complaints arose that school officials responded with anapologetic e-mail. Earlier this year at Lake Brantley High School in Seminole County,Fla., speakers from the Academy for Learning Islam gave a presentation to students about "cultural diversity" that extended to a detaileddiscussion of the Quran and Islam. The school neither screened theALI speakers nor notified parents. After a number of complaints , local media coverage and a subsequent investigation, the schooldistrict apologized for the inappropriate presentation, admittingthat it violated the law. Subsequently, ALI was removed from the Seminole County school system's Dividends and Speaker'sBureau. As reported by the Cabinet Press , a school project last year at Amherst Middle School transformed"the quaint colonial town of Amherst, N.H., into a Saudi ArabianBedouin tent community." Male and female students were segregated,with the girls hosting "hijab and veil stations" and handing outthe oppressive head-to-toe black garment known as the abaya to female guests. Meanwhile, the boys hosted food and Arabicdancing stations because, as explained in the article, "thetraditions of Saudi Arabia at this time prevent women fromparticipating in these public roles." An "Islamic religion station"offered up a prayer rug, verses from the Quran, prayer items and acompass pointed towards Mecca. The fact that female subjugation waspresented as a benign cultural practice and Islamic religiousrituals were promoted with public funds is cause for concern. Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a charter school in Inver Grove Heights,Minn., came under recent scrutiny after Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten brought to light concerns about public funding for its overtly religious curriculum . The school is housed in the Muslim American Society 's (the American branch of the Egyptian Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood) Minnesotabuilding, alongside a mosque, and the daily routine includesprayer, ritual washing, halal food preparation and an after-school"Islamic studies" program. Kersten's columns prompted the Minnesotachapter of the American Civil Liberties Union to issue a press release expressing its own reservations about potential First Amendmentviolations. An investigation initiated by the Minnesota Department of Education verifiedseveral of Kersten's allegations and the school has since promisedto make the appropriate changes. In a bizarre twist, when a localtelevision news crew tried to report on the findings from school grounds, school officials confrontedthem and wrestled a camera away from one of its photographers,injuring him in the process. The controversy surrounding the founding of New York City's Arabiclanguage public school, Khalil Gibran International Academy, lastyear continues. Former principal Dhabah "Debbie" Almontaser wasasked to step down after publicly defending T-shirts produced by Arab Women Active inthe Arts and Media, an organization with whom she shared officespace, emblazoned with "Intifada NYC." But KGIA has othertroublesome associations. Its advisory board includes three imams, one of whom, New York University Imam KhalidLatif, sent a threatening letter to the university's presidentregarding a planned display of the Danish cartoons . Another, Shamsi Ali, runs the Jamaica Muslim Center QuranicMemorization School in Queens, a replica of the type of Pakistanimadrassa (or school) counter-terrorism officials have been warningabout since 9/11. Accordingly, several parents founded Stop the Madrassa: A Community Coalition to voice their contention that KGIA is an inappropriate candidate for taxpayer funding. Equally problematic are the textbooks used in American publicschools to teach Islam or Islamic history. Organizations such asSouthern California's Council on Islamic Education and Arabic World and Islamic Resources are tasked with screening and editing these textbooks for publicschool districts, but questions have been raised about the groups' scholarship and ideological agenda. The American Textbook Council , an organization that reviews history and social studies textbooksused in American schools, and its director, Gilbert T. Sewall , have produced a series of articles and reports on Islam textbooks and the findings are damning. They includetextbooks that are factually inaccurate, misrepresent and in somecases, glorify Islam, or are hostile to other religions . While teaching students about Islam within a religious studiescontext may be appropriate, the purpose becomes suspect when thetexts involved are compromised in this manner. Such are the complaints about "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond," a textbookpublished by the Teachers' Curriculum Institute , to the point where parents in the Scottsdale, Ariz., schooldistrict succeeded in having it removed from the curriculum in 2005. TCI is based in Mountain View, and the textbook is nowbeing used in the state's public schools, where similar concernshave arisen. A Marin County mother whose son has been assigned"History Alive!" has been trying to mount an effort to call school officials' attention to the problem. Similarly, aSan Luis Obispo mother filed an official complaint several years ago with her son's school authorities over the useof Houghton Mifflin's middle school text, "Across the Centuries,"which has been widely criticized for whitewashing Islamic history and glorifying Islam. Its recent approval for use in Montgomery County, Md., public schools is likely tolead to further objections. But the forces in opposition are powerful and plenty. They includepublic education bureaucrats and teachers mired in naivete andpolitical correctness, biased textbook publishers, politicizedprofessors and other experts tasked with helping states approvetextbooks, and at the top of the heap, billions of dollars in Saudi funding. These funds are pouring into the coffers ofvarious organs that design K-12 curricula. The resultant material,not coincidentally, turns out to be inaccurate, biased and,considering the Wahhabist strain of Islam promulgated by SaudiArabia, dangerous. And again, taxpayer dollars are involved.National Review Online contributing editor Stanley Kurtz explains : "The United States government gives money — and a federalseal of approval — to a university Middle East Studiescenter. That center offers a government-approved K-12 Middle Eaststudies curriculum to America's teachers. But in fact, thatcurriculum has been bought and paid for by the Saudis, who may evenhave trained the personnel who operate the university's outreachprogram. Meanwhile, the American government is asleep at the wheel— paying scant attention to how its federally mandated publicoutreach programs actually work. So without ever realizing it,America's taxpayers end up subsidizing — and providingofficial federal approval for — K-12 educational materials onthe Middle East that have been created under Saudi auspices. Game,set, match: Saudis." Along with funding textbooks and curricula, the Saudis are alsoinvolved in funding and designing training for public schoolteachers. The Saudi funded Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University now offers professional development workshops for K-12 teachers. The workshops take place at the hostinginstitution and provide teachers with classroom material. They arefree of charge and ACMCU throws in lunch to boot. But this generosity likely comes with a catch, for the center isknown for producing scholars and material with a decidedly apologist bent , both toward the Saudi Royal Family and Islamic radicalism . It's no accident that ACMCU education consultant Susan Douglass,according to her bio , has been "an affiliated scholar" with the Council on IslamicEducation "for over a decade." Douglass also taught social studiesat the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax, Va., where her husband still teaches. ISA has come under investigation for Saudi-provided textbooks and curriculum that some have allegedpromotes hatred and intolerance towards non-Muslims. That someonewith Douglass' problematic associations would be in charge of training public school teachers hardlyinspires confidence in the system. While groups such as People for the American Way, Americans Unitedfor Separation of Church and State, and the ACLU express outrage atany semblance of Christianity in America's public schools, verylittle clamor has met the emergence of Islam in the same arena. Anoccasional press release, such as the one put out by the Minnesotachapter of the ACLU regarding TIZA, will surface, but by and large,the arbiters of separation of church and state or in this case,mosque and state, have gone silent. The same can largely be saidfor the federal government and, in particular, the State Department . No doubt, Saudi dollars and influence are part of the problem. Probably the single greatest weapon in the arsenal of those tryingto fight the misuse of America's public schools is communityinvolvement. As noted previously, a number of parental coalitionshave sprung up across the country in an effort to protect their ownchildren from indoctrination. The Stop the Madrassa Coalition hasexpanded its efforts beyond New York City by working on policyideas for legislation and meeting privately with members ofCongress. Also providing hope are Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), whose10-point " Wake Up America " agenda includes a call to reform Saudi-provided textbooks, andthe bipartisan Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus she co-chairs. Its focus on "jihadist ideology" demonstrates an all-too-rare governmental understanding of the nature of the current conflict. The power to educate the next generation is an inestimable one anda free society cedes control at its peril. The days of the "silentmajority" are no longer tenable in the face of a determined andclever enemy. The battle of ideas must be joined. Cinnamon Stillwell is a San Francisco writer. She can be reached at cinnamonstillwell@yahoo.com . She also writes for the blog at campus-watch.org.