From the NY Times:

“Keep the ‘Art’ in ‘Smart’ and ‘Heart,’ ” Sydney McGee had posted on her Web site at Wilma Fisher Elementary School in this moneyed boomtown that is gobbling up the farm fields north of Dallas.

But Ms. McGee, 51, a popular art teacher with 28 years in the classroom, is out of a job after leading her fifth-grade classes last April through the Dallas Museum of Art. One of her students saw nude art in the museum, and after the child’s parent complained, the teacher was suspended.

Although the tour had been approved by the principal, and the 89 students were accompanied by 4 other teachers, at least 12 parents and a museum docent, Ms. McGee said, she was called to the principal the next day and “bashed.”

She later received a memorandum in which the principal, Nancy Lawson, wrote: “During a study trip that you planned for fifth graders, students were exposed to nude statues and other nude art representations.” It cited additional complaints, which Ms. McGee has challenged.

The school board suspended her with pay on Sept. 22.

Continue reading "Teacher Suspended For Exposing Class To Nudity In A Museum" »

[From the AP]

So much for "Thou shalt not steal." Just before 4 a.m. Thursday, an intruder snatched the contentious painting of Jesus Christ from the halls of Bridgeport High School. The theft came just two days after the Harrison County School Board voted to fight a legal challenge over the portrait.

Schools Superintendent Carl Friebel said the bandit took the painting, but left behind the gilded frame and backing.

"The picture was the only thing stolen, so the deliberate intent was to steal the picture and only the picture," Friebel said.

Continue reading "Contentious W.Va. Jesus painting stolen" »

via Gawker: "Meet Melanie Martinez, until recently the host PBS Kids Sprout's "The Good Night Show," a collection of stories and cartoons designed to ease the kiddies into slumberland. What came between Melanie and her role as toddler tour-guide? Oh, you know, just a couple parody commercials endorsing assfucking."

This promises to be *exciting.* Because children are never too young to begin "recruiting." And as one school teacher insists, why not "tote 'em and quote 'em! And use 'em in class." Via The Right Reverend Rabbi Judah:

Students to bring Bibles to school

Christian students, teachers, and support staff in U.S. public schools will bring Bibles to class Sept. 24-30. The ninth annual "Scriptures in Schools Week" will be marked by participating students using Bible references to complete various in-class assignments and homework.

The nationwide kick-off event is designed to establish the habit for students to bring Bibles to class all year long and make the Bible a commonplace text in America's schools once again.

SIS Week complements other national student events such as "See You at The Pole" and "Challenge Sunday-Adopt a School for Christ." Christian parents can make it a family affair by bringing their Bibles to work for "The Word at Work Week."

Inspired by the Great Commission and Isaiah 55:11, SIS Project is an effective, friendly, low key, legal and ethical way for Christian students in public schools to casually and routinely introduce Biblical concepts into America's public school classrooms using what SIS Coordinator Bob Pawson calls "Academic Evangelism."

"Tote 'em and quote 'em! And use 'em in class," says Pawson, a teacher in the Trenton Public Schools since 1980. "Dare to bring your Bibles. Let's return the Bible to our public schools and restore basic Biblical literacy to America's children."

Pawson says, "Academic Evangelism is legal, non- disruptive to the school, and should lead to enhanced scholarship, as well as improved student behavior. A Great Revival is occurring in a most unlikely place: America's public schools - led by teens and children."

"Academic Evangelism creates daily opportunities for students from Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade to share Bible concepts with classmates and teachers in a scholarly manner. Students can present Gospel truths academically by using Biblical references to complete some assignments each week such as essays, book reports, spelling sentences, penmanship or word processing samples, oral readings, dramatic presentations, and biographies. Bible concepts can even be presented in subjects like math, science, social studies, art, and music."

Continue reading "BYOB: Mark Your Calendar For The Ninth Annual "Scriptures in Schools Week"" »

From NY Times: "William H. Crouch Jr., the president of Georgetown College, which separated from the Kentucky Baptist Convention last year."

Fed up with Southern Baptists who think Creationism and talking snakes belong in the classroom, many Baptist colleges are being to wake up and smell the decade. [From NY Times]

The request seemed simple enough to the Rev. Hershael W. York, then the president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He asked Georgetown College, a small Baptist liberal arts institution here, to consider hiring for its religion department someone who would teach a literal interpretation of the Bible.

But to William H. Crouch Jr., the president of Georgetown, it was among the last straws in a struggle that had involved issues like who could be on the board of trustees and whether the college encouraged enough freedom of inquiry to qualify for a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.[...]

Georgetown is among a half-dozen colleges and universities whose ties with state Baptist conventions have been severed in the last four years, part of a broad realignment in which more than a dozen Southern Baptist universities, including Wake Forest and Furman, have ended affiliations over the last two decade...

“The real underlying issue is that fundamentalism in the Southern Baptist form is incompatible with higher education,’’ Professor Key said. “In fundamentalism, you have all the truths. In education, you’re searching for truths.’’ [...]

Georgetown asked the Kentucky Baptist Convention two years ago to allow 25 percent of the college’s trustees to be non-Baptist, but the proposal was rejected. Only about half of Georgetown’s students are Baptist, and less than half of the alumni are Baptist, Dr. Crouch, the college’s president, said.

“I realized that our fund-raising depended on getting non-Baptists on our board,’’ Dr. Crouch said.

Then, a year ago, the Kentucky convention turned down a nominee for Georgetown’s board for the first time. Around the same time, Dr. York asked the college to look for a religion professor who would teach theologically conservative positions.

“You ought to have some professor on your faculty who believes Adam and Eve were the first humans, that they actually existed,’’ Dr. York said.

read it all here.

From The Associated Press [via Carpetbagger]:

Despite constitutional concerns, Gov. Bob Taft signed a bill [this week] requiring all public and community schools to display any donated copies of the national and state mottos — "In God We Trust" and "With God, All Things Are Possible." […]

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Keith Faber, a Celina Republican, requires public schools, including charter schools run by private entities using state money, to display copies of the mottos if they are donated in a classroom, auditorium or cafeteria. An earlier version of the bill required display in every classroom in the state.

Moms for Ohio, a small political-action committee that mostly promotes conservative causes, pushed the bill as instilling the right values in children.

Carpetbagger Report has a funny analysis of the decision:

How wonderfully logical. Children will see "In God We Trust" posters everywhere, every day, until they've lost all meaning. This will "instill the right values," the same way putting the phrase on all currency since 1954 has dramatically curtailed the rate at which people steal others' money. Oh wait, it hasn't.

"Stop the ACLU Coalition" director and Tub of Lard, Nedd Kareiva, is "pleased" with their harassment (his cell # 773.309.4463)

A Jewish family was forced to leave their Delaware home after complaining about rampant proselytizing in their child's Indian River School District:

[From Jews on First] A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit...

On the evening in August 2004 when the board was to announce its new policy, hundreds of people turned out for the meeting. The Dobrich family and Jane Doe felt intimidated and asked a state trooper to escort them.

The complaint recounts a raucous crowd that applauded the board's opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him "take your yarmulke off!" His statement, read by Samantha, confided "I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy."

...A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might "disappear" like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. She disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.

The crowd booed an ACLU speaker and told her to "go back up north."

In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby.

To make matters worse, a creepy group called the "Stop the ACLU Coalition" publicised the Jewish family’s address and telephone phone number and stigmatized them as "ACLU plaintiffs" in order to ensure further harassment of the family. In response, Jesus General sent the head of the Stop the ACLU Coalition, Nedd Kareiva (cell # 773.309.4463), this hilarious letter.

UPDATE: The Stop the ACLU website has posted a very un-Jesusy response to all the attention they're suddenly getting. Here's a highlight:

To all you liberals who are reading this web page as a result of a link from Salon, the Daily Kos or one of your other obnoxious blogs, be advised that there have been some minor corrections made to this page, not as a direct result of your e-mails but because I believe it was the right thing to do. However, there will be no more changes.

Yet let me say that this individual below [The Dobrich Family] is not the sole target here. It's just that I have not had time to update this page. But now I will. And I assure you of this - the more e-mails you send, the faster I will get more individuals and groups posted. And believe me, I have a lot of them.

So if you think you're angry at me now, just wait until we post more cases. We love making you mad and will do all we can to see you become unglued.

Evidently, it's okay for the good Christians at Stop the ACLU to seek revenge and call people obnoxious. Turning the other cheek is for pussies like Jesus.

[cross linked on Bartholomew and Talk2Action]

From the AP: Two civil liberties groups sued in federal court Wednesday to remove a picture of Jesus that has hung in a high school for more than 30 years.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the West Virginia American Civil Liberties Union say the painting, "Head of Christ," sends the message that Bridgeport High School endorses Christianity as its official religion.

"I frankly cannot understand why this school insists that it is doing nothing wrong," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "This is pretty clear constitutional law. Public schools cannot promote specific religious ideas."

A vote by the Harrison County school board on removing the painting ended in a tie this month.

"At this point, it's a matter that's pretty much going to be up to the board," Superintendent Carl Friebel Jr. said. "It's just going to be very interesting for me to see what the board wants us to do with it."

The suit was filed on behalf of Harold Sklar and Jacqueline McKenzie, whose children attended or will attend the school.