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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Oklahoma Gazette News: Shaping social studies group that includes an influential nonacademic religious adviser

Oklahoma Gazette News: Shaping social studies:

Shaping social studies


Curriculum for an interdisciplinary field gets revised by a group that includes an influential nonacademic religious adviser.

Clifton AdcockNovember 16th, 2011

The state Department of Education is beginning the process of formulating new curriculum for public social studies classes.

Sixty-five individuals are tasked with reviewing and rewriting the curriculum. At least one name on the list has drawn fire in the past for controversial statements: David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders, a group that bills itself as “an organization dedicated to presenting America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on the moral, religious and constitutional foundation on which America was built — a foundation which, in recent years, has been seriously attacked and undermined.”

Most of those comprising the curriculum review committee are school teachers and principals