Corpus Christi, TX School Provides a Dubious Education

Kara Sands, a Texas mother recently became upset that her son, who attends Flour Bluff Intermediate School in the 5th grade, was receiving a sub-standard education.  She especially seems to think that the Corpus Christi area school puts the United States of America in a bad light and that it does an injustice to Christianity as well.

I attended 2nd grade at Flour Bluff Elementary School in 1954 when my Dad was flying out of the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station.  When we moved to Brigantine, NJ in 1955, my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Leeds, spent a good part of the year threatening to make me repeat 3rd grade.  In due time, my mother figured out that few of my math problems were copied correctly from the board, but as copied the math was always correct.  I got my first pair of eyeglasses and everything changed in math.  However, I had no reading skills.  None.  Dick and Jane running after Spot was of no interest to me at all.  Learning the rudiments of reading was very painful, but my mother survived the crash course of making me read.  In the early 4th grade, I discovered books about John Paul Jones, Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk-Fox Indian wars, and Kit Carson.  There was no stopping me from reading after that.

So, while I have fond memories of living as something of a wildcat on Rod Field, an old abandoned naval air station of WWII, Flour Bluff Elementary School is a bad memory.  I really hated the sauerkraut they seemed to feed us every day at lunch.  So, hearing about the present-day Flour Bluff Intermediate School was of special interest to me.  Let us look at some test fragments that Kara Sands has made available from that school.

Kara Sands was right to be concerned about the offered answers to Question 3 and the fact that the "right" answer was considered to be B.  Well, yes some decisions made in the US have had negative effects upon someone outside the US, but many of the actions of Americans have helped to make the world more peaceful and to allow widespread trade that has raised the standard of living of billions of people around the world.  Our scientific and medical advances have improved lives widely and our production methods have made many fantastic products available at an affordable cost.  The "correct" answer B displays a huge failure to convey context.  Of course, this context-dropping is all too common among the Progressive Elitists and the unskilled laborers of the teachers unions who follow their directions.

I have another problem with this.  Look at Question 1.  These are kids who probably do not know who Nathaniel Greene, George Mason, Robert Morris, and Gouvenor Morris are.  But they sure are taught the name of a rescue dog.  This is as bad as the now commonly known victim of the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks.  Mind you, I do not actually mind kids knowing who Attucks or Nero were, provided they know who Greene, Mason, R. and G. Morris were.

Kara Sands has also provided us with a vocabulary test:

Kara was unhappy with the description of the swastika.  The description is a natural one, but it is also true that many Christians are sick of slights directed at Christianity by the Progressive Elitists who dominate the government-run education systems.  Tolerance is taught toward other religions, but not so much for Christianity.  I will not judge this one without more context on how the school generally treats religious issues and sensitivities.  Governments have many conflicts of interest when it comes to their controlling education and one really sticky area is how can they address religion without violating freedom of conscience, or that sub-field of freedom of religion.

However, she also pointed out that Nazi was improperly said to be simply "member of the German Party."  Of course, other German parties co-existed with the Nazis, preceded them, and followed them.  One suspects that the proper choice of member of the National Socialist Workers Party was not offered because it really rankles the Progressive Elitist Socialists that the Nazis were a socialist party.

Note also that Halt is spelled Halte.  No, that is not the German word for halt either.  Nor the Danish, since the Kroner is mentioned.  Halte does appear in French.  But it appears simply to be a misspelling of the English halt.

Then there is the carelessness of not actually having provided the correct answer for Occupation.

It seems that education in the government-run schools of Flour Bluff still leaves a lot to be desired!