As has been amply demonstrated by others, Howard Zinn was an anti-American secular humanist with heavily Marxist leanings.  As I have already written, teaching the Zinn Education Project in public schools likely violates the California education code.  It discriminates against particular races (namely, non-minorities) and all traditional religion (particularly with regard to its view of homosexuality).  Zinn himself called for violating the education codes wherever possible:

“Don’t obey the rules… you have to play a kind of guerrilla warfare with the establishment in which you try not to be fired… You have to depart from the curriculum… outside the lines that are set for us by the school administration, or the politicians.”

Zinn, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, Matt Damon

 Of course, that doesn’t stop schoolteachers everywhere from teaching Zinn.  According to the Oxnard Union High School District, Zinn’s on the California Department of Education Recommended Reading List.   

He’s taught at the San Lorenzo Unified School District Re-Entry Intervention Program, which targets kids coming back to school after being expelled, students with ten or more days of suspension who are on track for expulsion, students coming back to school from Juvenile Hall – in short, the worst of the worst.  This makes perfect sense – after all, what better way is there to teach borderline-criminal kids about good citizenship than pillorying America and giving them delusions of victimhood?  (more…)

All instructional materials approved by school boards and used in California schools must comply with the Standards for Evaluating Instructional Materials for Social Content (2000).  It’s an idiotic set of standards, radically liberal in orientation.  It states that materials must “instill in each child a sense of pride in his or her heritage …”  One wonders whether it is a good idea to instill in the grandson of a Nazi brownshirt “pride in his heritage.”

At the same time, the standards do have their strong points.  On religion, all students are supposed to “become aware and accepting of religious diversity while being allowed to remain secure in any religious beliefs they may already have.”

The California Education Code includes similar provisions regarding the use of particular materials in the classroom.  Section 60044 requires that no instructional materials be adopted by any governing board which contains “Any matter reflecting adversely upon persons because of their race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, handicap, or occupation.”  The statute does not exclude whites or Americans. (more…)