Chuck Norris’s brain waves could be picked up on a transistor radio — nobody knows because he doesn’t think.This must be a television advertising spot, but I hope it’s not rated as a public service spot, since it encourages stupidity and illegal school board actions.
(Is it my imagination, or is Norris using the same bottle of orange hair dye that Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-Mars, used in the last 65 years of his life?)
Norris is promoting the suspect curriculum of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), a group of fundamentalist right-wingers who originally promoted “Thou Shalt Not Steal” with plagiarized material. Do not trust that curriculum.
Analysis of this curriculum for the Texas Freedom Network by a distinguished Bible scholar from Southern Methodist University, Dr. Mark Chancey, showed that the curriculum as revised still presents enormous legal problems — it promotes fundamentalist Christian theology — as well as being academically flaccid. Despite an update in late 2005/early 2006 designed to alleviate some of the more egregious errors of fact, Bible fact, and plagiarism, NCBCPS refuses to release their curriculum for analysis; copies obtained from schools in Texas show many of the old problems remain (see page 61 of this document).
Errors in Norris’s claims:
- The U.S. was not “founded on Biblical principles.” For Texas, teaching this would lead students astray of the state’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
- The Supreme Court has never ruled that it’s legal to teach with the Bible as a textbook. In obiter dicta in religion in the schools cases, the Court has noted that a non-sectarian, fair teaching of the Bible as literature, or as it relates to history, should be part of a full and complete education. Specifically, the Court has never ruled that a course such as the one Norris proposes would be legal; instead, the Court has held consistently that course content that appears to be religious indoctrination as this course, is illegal, a violation of students’ religious rights and and over-reach by government. School boards may not endorse one faith over another.
- The count of schools using the NCBCPS curriculum is inflated. The group refuses to identify any school using their materials, but their claims in Texas were found to be inflated when compared with the materials school districts actually used.
Religion has played a big role in U.S. history. No student needs to be converted to Christianity in order to study that role. Nor does the role of Christianity need to be exaggerated.
Good Bible curricula exist, open to inspection, passed by religious scholars, approved by First Amendment and education lawyers. See the materials from the Bible Literacy Project, for a good example. NCBCPS’s curriculum, the one Norris promotes, is not that approved, educationally valuable curriculum.
Below the fold: Texas Faith Network’s guidelines for using the Bible in public schools
Recommendations to school districts
As Abington v. Schempp declared in 1963, the Bible is definitely worthy of study in public schools for its literary and historic qualities. The challenge is how to teach about it in an objective, nonsectarian manner that neither encourages nor disparages religious beliefs. Materials submitted by Texas schools offering Bible courses suggest that most have not yet figured out how to respond to that challenge. Almost all courses assume and promote (intentionally or not) particular religious views. The following brief recommendations are based upon this report’s findings and are offered with the hope that they might help school districts create courses that are both academically and legally appropriate.
1. School districts should adhere to guidelines proposed by the First Amendment Center – The Bible and Public Schools: A First Amendment Guide. These guidelines have been endorsed by 20 religious and educational groups, including the National Association of Evangelicals, the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, and other Christian, Jewish and Islamic organizations.
2. The process by which local school boards decide to offer Bible courses and choose the curricula for those courses should be open and transparent and invite the full participation of parents and other citizens from the community.
3. School districts should make sure that teachers have the appropriate academic background in biblical and religious studies and sufficient training on the legal issues involving the teaching of religion-related
courses in public schools. If no such teacher is available within a school’s district’s staff, then the district should not offer the course until it finds a way to provide sufficient professional development to prepare a teacher for the special challenges of teaching a Bible course. Such training should emphasize, among other things, the ability to recognize sectarian materials and ideas.4. Classes should avoid relying primarily on sectarian resources for student readings, teacher preparation, videos, and other course components. Course materials surveyed for this study suggest that the religious claims of such resources are often presented to students as statements of fact.
5. School officials should regularly monitor the content of Bible courses to ensure that they are academically and legally appropriate. Special training might be required for administrators to help them recognize inappropriate sectarian elements.
Update, December 12, 2007: Could any unwary, naive and innocent bloggers be suckered by such a bizarre claim as Norrises? Caosblog thinks it’s a good deal, proving once again that history education needs to be beefed up, and that any wolf can have his way if he claims to be opposing the Constitution for Jesus.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
My red hair just turned mousy light brown–or white. I have one spot at my temple that is still the original auburn–it just makes me look like I don’t know how to use hair dye. (and it sure doesn’t look like Chuck’s hair!)
Getting old sucks. :p
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Sorry about that. I’ve wondered where that bottle of Strom’s dye went after he died, though. As a former redhead, I guess I notice these things more than others. Mine was a little darker than carrot red — but that carpet on Norris is orange.
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Oh, your crack about Strom Thurman’s hair dye almost made coffee come out my nose! :D
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