Illinois School Pushes Smut on Children as Young as 12 with Profanity Laden Book

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. And they're robbing kids of great reading like Oliver Twist, Treasure Island and many others in the process.

From "Illinois School Pushes Smut on Children as Young as 12 with Porn-Laden Book" posted 8/28/07 at Lifesite.org

Illinois School District 126, covering Alsip, Hazelgreen and Oak Lawn, has defended its choice 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 reading list for rising 8th graders gave children six books to choose from over the summer. Parents have complained that three of the six books contain adult content which is highly age-inappropriate. Those complaints, however, have fallen on deaf ears. At a recent school board meeting, school board members said they intend to continue assigning the books.

To add insult to injury, the school didn't even have the courtesy to warn these kids - or their parents - about the adult content within the assigned reading. And parents are understandably furious. If one of my daughters came to me at twelve having been assigned this smut, I'd be ticked-off too.

Whatever happened to classics like Ivanhoe or Up From Slavery? Sure, some of them may even contain limited profanity and adult content, but there's a big difference. The profane content in Fat Kid isn't sporadic. It's pervasive and gratuitous. The book has 110 pages containing the F-word and other profanities, and there are multiple crude sexual references.

With all the objectionable material children are subjected to on the internet, on television and in theatres, it's outrageous that educators, who are charged with helping to mold the minds of these 12- and 13-year-olds, would willingly - if not eagerly - contribute to their moral degradation 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.

I telephoned Robert Berger, superintendent of schools for District 126, fully expecting him to assure me that this foolishness would be remedied. But instead, his response was defiant, defensive and arrogant.

Berger refused to answer me when I asked him several times if District 126 believed that such mature content was appropriate for children. (I wonder; if it's so appropriate, then why wouldn't he defend it?)

I asked Berger if one could infer that the district found the material appropriate since it was assigned to children. He quipped, "Infer whatever you want to."

No one's calling for a book burning here, but c'mon, these are just kids. Does District 126 have any standards of decency at all?

Unfortunately the actions of District 126 are symptomatic of a metastasizing moral malady within our larger system of public education. Kids in public schools across the country are constantly inundated with material which promotes profanity, homosexuality, promiscuity and abortion.

The agenda is pushed and the curriculum set by leftist groups like the National Education Association (NEA), the ACLU and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Even the American Library Association (ALA) gave Fat Kids its "Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature." The book also received a rave review from America's largest homosexual activist literary organization, Lambda Literary Foundation.

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. And they're robbing kids of great reading like Oliver Twist, Treasure Island and many others in the process.

How low will they go?

By the looks of things in Alsip, Illinois, they're not going to bottom out anytime soon.

For additional background on this saga, read last week's blog post.

Oak Lawn Mom Demands Decency From District 126

Parents should be able to trust educators to choose reading material for children that does not contain gratuitous profanity and graphic sexuality...

From "Oak Lawn mom demands ban on racy book" by Angela Caputo, posted 8/3/07 at dailysouthtown.com

Note the use of the word 'ban' in the headline of this article in the Daily Southtown. Using the word 'ban' is both misleading and inaccurate. This word was chosen specifically because it has a negative connotation. No one wants to be known as a 'book banner.' They've managed to imply that this courageous mother as a fanatic in the first few words. But is she?

Karen Lukes is simply asking that children not be given books containing gratuitous profanity and overt sexual content.

Apparently the media and educators believe that although books have to be evaluated for scores of criteria including vocabulary and artistic merit -- graphic profanity and sexuality should NEVER be a reason to reject a book for children...

It's extremely difficult to sympathize with such reasoning.

Karen Lukes didn't think much about the book that her son randomly picked from a list of suggested summer reading compiled by teachers at Alsip's Prairie Junior High.

Frankly, she said, she was thrilled to see the 14-year-old crack a book during the break from school.

But as the Oak Lawn mother began to read alongside her soon-to-be eighth-grader, she was stunned to discover that "Fat Kid Rules the World" by K.L. Going was laced with profanity and other mature content.

Now she wants Alsip, Hazelgreen and Oak Lawn School District 126 administrators to shelve the book for good.

"I want it pulled," Lukes said. "It's vulgar, and it's a total contradiction. The kids can't go around and talk like this ... What kind of message does it send?"

District 126 Supt. Robert Berger stands by the award-winning selection as one of many books offered to students. All seventh- and eighth-graders at Prairie Junior High are required to read at least one book, preferably from the recommended summer reading list, before school begins.

"These are standard pieces of literature used (in schools) across the country," Berger said. "Appropriateness is for students and parents to judge."

Berger said two other parents have complained about the book.

"Fat Kid Rules the World" chronicles the friendship between an angst-ridden teen named Troy and Curt, a homeless punk-rocker. The pair first cross paths as Troy contemplates throwing himself from a subway platform in a suicide attempt.

The coming-of-age novel, which broaches mature subjects -- from drug and alcohol use to adolescent sexual fantasies to ditching school -- has been compared to J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye."

When it was published in 2003, "Fat Kid Rules the World" ranked on the "Best Books" list compiled by the School Library Journal. Going also received The Michael L. Printz award, which is sponsored by a publication of the American Library Association.

Being given an award by the ALA is no guarantee of decency. The official stance of the ALA is that to withhold even sexually graphic material from children amounts to 'age discrimination. '

"Parents who would tell their children not to read Playboy 'don't really care about their kids growing up and learning to think and explore." --Judith Fingerett Krug, ALA Director for Intellectual Freedom.

The ALA apparently finds it perfectly acceptable to discriminate against common sense...

Read the rest of this article.

Follow the saga at culturecampaign.com