Coming to a school near you?
Never mind improving the math, science, and history curriculums at South Carolina schools—three South Carolina lawmakers want schools to focus on what's really important: the Second Amendment. From
Think Progress:
Legislation proposed last month by three members of the South Carolina legislature would require public school teachers in that state to spend three weeks each year extolling the virtues of the Second Amendment — as that amendment is understood by the National Rifle Association. The bill requires all South Carolina public schools to “provide instruction in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution for at least three consecutive weeks during one grading period in each academic year.” Moreover, “the State Superintendent of Education shall adopt a curriculum developed or recommended by the National Rifle Association or its successor organization.”
Three weeks seems like a ridiculous amount of time for one subject.
Read below the fold to find out just how ridiculous.
One South Carolina charter school, for example, devotes just two weeks to “The Slave System and the Coming of the Civil War” and only a week and a half to World War II in its Advanced Placement United States History course. A Maine private school devotes two weeks to “Slavery and Sectionalism” and another two weeks to “World War II and the Origins of the Cold War.” A Kentucky high school devotes only two weeks to the “Roaring 20’s, Great Depression and New Deal,” a period that thrust America into an historic crisis and transformed the nation’s view of the role of government in society.
You can read the entire bill
here, but below are key elements:
TO AMEND THE CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, SO AS TO ENACT THE "SECOND AMENDMENT EDUCATION ACT OF 2015"; BY ADDING SECTION 59-29-25 SO AS TO DESIGNATE DECEMBER FIFTEENTH OF EACH YEAR AS "SECOND AMENDMENT AWARENESS DAY" IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND TO REQUIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO CONDUCT POSTER OR ESSAY CONTESTS WITH RELATED THEMES, AND TO PROVIDE CERTAIN RECOGNITION FOR STATEWIDE CONTEST WINNERS; BY ADDING SECTION 59-29-125 SO AS TO PROVIDE ALL PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, MIDDLE SCHOOLS, AND HIGH SCHOOLS SHALL PROVIDE INSTRUCTION IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION FOR AT LEAST THREE CONSECUTIVE WEEKS IN ONE GRADING PERIOD IN EACH ACADEMIC YEAR, TO PROVIDE THAT IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS THIS COURSEWORK MAY BE USED TO PARTIALLY SATISFY EXISTING REQUIREMENTS FOR TEACHING THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, AND TO PROVIDE THE STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION SHALL ADOPT A CURRICULUM FOR TEACHING THE SECOND AMENDMENT THAT HAS BEEN DEVELOPED OR RECOMMENDED BY THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, AND TO PROVIDE CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSEWORK; AND TO AMEND SECTION 59-29-140, RELATING TO ENFORCEMENT OF THE STUDY OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION REQUISITE FOR GRADUATION, SO AS TO MAKE A CONFORMING CHANGE.
Emphasis mine. You read that correctly—not only would this bill require schools to spend three weeks teaching about the Second Amendment, the curriculum MUST be developed by the NRA.
But wait, there's more:
Whereas, the right to bear arms has been increasingly and unjustly made the target of criticism when acts of violence involving gun use occur, rather than focusing on the underlying causes that led to the violent act; and
Whereas, one result of hostility toward the second amendment has been an absolute intolerance for any discussion of guns or depiction of guns in writing or in assignments in public schools, which is an affront to First Amendment rights and harshly inhibits creative expression and academic freedom.
See? This law is meant to stop the unjust criticism of the Second Amendment. Pay no attention to the
96 gun incidents in American schools last year.
When education makes priorities like this, it's not hard to see why more U.S. scientists are fleeing the country.