From: ShunkW <shunkw@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 2:06 AM
Subject: Utah County parents protest schools' promotion of
To: ShunkW <shunkw@sbcglobal.net>
Must be some of Glenn's Mormon buddies…
Utah County parents protest schools' promotion of 'democracy'
by Rosemary Winters
The Salt Lake Tribune
Some Utah County parents are calling on the Alpine School District to stop spreading "false educational ideas." First and foremost, the parents say, the district needs to clamp down on its use of the D-word: "democracy."
This week, a spokeswoman for Utah's Republic, a group that advocates for a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, asked the Alpine Board of Education to scrap its democracy-centered mission statement. The issue has sparked a dust-up over the past month, garnering petition signatures from hundreds of Alpine parents and a rebuke of the school board by the Provo Daily Herald's editorial board.
Alpine's mission statement is "Educating all students to ensure the future of our democracy."
But this nation is a republic, not a democracy, said Oak Norton, a Highland father of five and the founder of Utah's Republic. The Constitution guarantees every state a "republican form of government." "Karl Marx said, 'Democracy is the road to socialism,' " Norton said. A true democracy, he said, relies solely on majority rule and inevitably devolves into anarchy, which then sprouts socialist dictators.
The term "democracy" is commonly used to refer to American society and the power of the people to participate in government, including through votes on ballot measures and representatives, said Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics..
"Technically the United States is a constitutional republic," he said. "However, leaders from both [political] parties have often referred to us as a democracy."
Jowers said he received some of the same criticism about the D-word as chairman of the Governor's Commission on Strengthening Utah's Democracy.
"There seems to be a segment of the population who is worried not just about being technically precise on these words ... but somehow interprets a move to democracy as some type of a progressive movement that needs to be stopped," Jowers said. "For the most part, when people talk about strengthening democracy, they're talking about getting more people in the United States involved in our politics and government and more nations in the world being subject to elections instead of dictators."
Alpine spokeswoman Rhonda Bromley said the district will re-evaluate its mission statement this summer -- as it does every year -- with the input of parents and community council members.
"Obviously, we're not running to every school today, pulling the mission statement out," she said. "Whether or not there's going to be a change, that will be up to the Board of Education and they'll go through a [public] process to come to that decision."
In a statement posted on the district's Web site, the board stands by its language.
"We chose 'our democracy' to reflect both a government with power vested in the people and our freedoms. We not only recognize that our government is a republic, but we value and participate in this form of government with an elected Board of Education," the statement said. "The use of the word democracy underscores the type of republic found in the United States."
Norton launched an online petition months ago to press the State Office of Education to emphasize the nation's founding as a republic in the state's social studies standards, which guide curriculum.
Since Alpine's mission statement first came under fire in February, his petition has swelled to nearly 750 signatures -- including eight Utah legislators.
Susan Schnell, a Highland mother of five, became alarmed when she visited the district's professional development center and saw the phrase "Enculturating the young into a social and political democracy."
The phrase is one of four values adopted by Alpine district as part of a partnership with Brigham Young University that promotes the "moral dimensions of teaching."
"We all have our own ideas of politics. That's fine," Schnell said. "What was not fine is that I think this district is putting too much emphasis on politicizing and not enough on academics."
But Bromley said districts all along the Wasatch Front have adopted the values outlined in BYU's "moral dimensions of teaching."
Schnell also found a link from the school district's mission statement online to an essay, "America: Republic or Democracy?" that she found offensive. She sent an e-mail to other parents and many of them protested the essay, which refers to the nation's founders as "predatory elite" who chose the republic form of government to maintain control over slaves and those with less socioeconomic clout.
Parents also were troubled by other works by the essay's author, William P. Meyers, including "Vampires or Gods," a satire about the possibility that Jesus and other deities were really vampires.
The district promptly erased its link to the essay.
"The link was inappropriate and does not reflect the beliefs or values of the district, administration or school board," the Alpine school board said in a statement.
Utah's Republic has asked the board to deliver answers to their other concerns at its April 20 meeting.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14797234
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