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Contact: Sarah Rode, 202-488-7000 ext. 127, Concerned Women for America
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 /Standard Newswire/ -- An Illinois School District is defending its decision to assign summer reading to 12- and 13-year-olds that is replete with harsh profanity and references to teen sex (even teen sex with adults). Prairie Junior High School's required summer reading list for rising 8th graders gave children six books from which to choose. Parents complained that three of the six books contain adult content which is highly age-inappropriate. Those complaints, however, fell on deaf ears. At a recent school board meeting, school board members said they intend to continue assigning the books.
One of the books, Fat Kid Rules the World, by K. L. Going, has 110 pages containing the F-word and other profanities, and multiple crude sexual references. Yet the school did not warn children — or their parents — about the adult content within the assigned reading. (For more detail, see Concerned Women for America (CWA) Policy Director for Cultural Issues Matt Barber's recent column at www.cwfa.org)
"Whatever happened to classics like Robinson Crusoe or Uncle Tom's Cabin?" asked Barber. "Why can't schools choose books that teach values in the context of great literature? Instead, they are requiring middle school children to read sub-par writing littered with lewd behavior and speech.
"It's unconscionable that educators would contribute to the moral degradation of 12- and 13-year-olds by pushing this kind of vulgarity on them. It amounts to educational malpractice, and School District 126 should have its mouth washed out with soap.
"Kids in public schools across the country are inundated with material which promotes profanity, homosexuality, promiscuity and abortion. Leftist groups like the National Education Association, the ACLU and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network set guidelines and curriculum that push an ideological agenda.
"By constantly lowering the bar on decency, educators are intentionally playing a game of ideological limbo with our children's moral well-being as they seek to create little moral relativists in their own iconoclastic self-image.
"Parents should contact their local school board members and encourage them to get back to assigning great reading like Oliver Twist and Treasure Island. There are thousands of terrific classics to choose from without resorting to B-line smut," concluded Barber.
Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.
