Upset Mom Finds Herself Contacting the News After Reading the Answers on Her Son’s Islam Worksheet

A mother in Union County, North Carolina, told WJZY-TV that her son, a freshman at Porter Ridge High School, brought home a worksheet on Islam containing some questionable answers. She was upset enough over the assignment that she contacted the school and her local news station after reviewing the material.

The sentence that bothered the mom the most stated, “Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.”

It should be noted that school officials have yet to provide a completed version of the worksheet to the news outlet. Though it appears that the high school has not disputed the content, the answers were filled in by the student and seemingly have yet to be verified as 100 percent correct.

“If you are going to do it, let’s do it right,” the mother told WJYZ-TV. “I really feel there is a spin on this.”

The mother, who asked to remain anonymous so her child isn’t singled out at school, said officials didn’t provide a clear answer when she asked if Christianity is being taught in the same fashion.

A spokesman at the Islamic Center for Charlotte told the news station that schools shouldn’t teach that Muslims’ faith is automatically stronger than that of Christians.

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One Nation Under Godlessness not Looking Good

By Michelle Malkin

Cheating. Bullying. Cybersexting. Hazing. Molestation. Suicide. Drug abuse. Murder. Scanning the headlines of the latest scandals in America’s schools, it’s quite clear that the problem is not that there’s too much God in students' lives.  The problem is that there isn’t nearly enough of Him.

With the malfunction of moral seatbelts and the erosion of moral guardrails, too many kids have turned to a pantheon of false gods, crutches and palliatives. They’re obsessed with “Slender Man” and “Vampire Diaries.” Alex from Target’s hair and Rihanna’s tattoos. Overpriced basketball sneakers and underdressed reality stars. Choking games and YouTube games. Gossip and hookups. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat.

It’s all about selfies over self-control, blurred lines over bright lines.

In a metastatic youth culture of soullessness and rootlessness, the idea of high school teens voluntarily using their free time to pray and sing hymns is not just a breath of fresh air. It’s salvation.

But leave it to secularists run amok to punish faithful young followers of Christ.

Last week, the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a religious freedom lawsuit against Pine Creek High School here in my adopted hometown of Colorado Springs. Chase Windebank, a senior at the District 20 school, had been convening an informal prayer group for the past three years “in a quiet area to sing Christian religious songs, pray, and to discuss issues of the day from a religious perspective.”

Windebank and his friends weren’t disrupting classroom time. They shared their Christian faith during an open period earned by high-achieving students. Other kids used the time to play on their phones, eat snacks, get fresh air outside, or schedule meetings for a wide variety of both official and unofficial school clubs.

A Pine Creek choir teacher had given permission to Windebank and his fellow worshipers to meet in an empty music practice room. No complaints ever ensued from other students or faculty. For three years, the group encountered no problems, according to ADF’s complaint. But in late September, Windebank was summoned to the assistant principal’s office and ordered to stop praying because of “the separation of church and state.”

The school singled out the young man of faith’s harmless activities and banned members of his group from discussing current issues of the day from a religious perspective during an open period in an unobtrusive meeting place.

As Todd Starnes of Fox News, who broke the story of the lawsuit last week, lamented: “Public school administrators and their lawyers have succeeded in suppressing and oppressing the Christian voice at Pine Creek High School.”

It defies common sense that in conservative-leaning Colorado Springs, home to a vibrant faith community and leading evangelical organizations, students would be reprimanded and deprived of basic constitutional rights. As a letter from local parents to the school district decried: “To what benefit does it serve a school to limit the ability for a student to pray with their friends, fellowship with their friends, or discuss daily events from a Christian perspective? It is obvious that School District 20 is taking a freedom FROM religion perspective, not a freedom OF religion perspective.”

Think about it: If the high-schoolers gathered in the cafeteria to listen to Billboard magazine’s No. 1 pop hit “Habits (Stay High)” – “You’re gone and I gotta stay high/ all the time/ to keep you off my mind” – school officials would have no issue.

If they lounged in a courtyard to joke about the latest girl-fight videos or off-color joke memes posted on Vine, no problem.  If they discussed the latest “Walking Dead” episode or napped in the library? All good.  But singing “Amazing Grace” and studying scripture? This subversion must be stopped!

How did we get here? And in Colorado Springs, of all places – not Berkeley or Boulder or Boston? Blame cowardice, ignorance and politically correct bureaucrats pledging allegiance to one nation, under godlessness, without religious liberty, and the occult of extreme secularism for all.

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Kids Don’t Eat Much of "Healthy" School Lunches

Healthier lunches have become available in schools across the nation.  But students aren’t eating them.  According to a new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study, “Nearly 6 in 10 [students] put a vegetable on their tray, but only a quarter actually eat even a single bite.”

The researchers observed the eating habits of 274 children in 10 New York City public schools. The students were in kindergarten through second grade.

According to the press release, researchers “watched to see whether each of the six-through-eight-year-olds chose a fruit, vegetable, whole grain, low-fat milk and/or a lean protein, taking before and after photos of the trays.” They discovered:

"While 75 percent of the kids chose the lean protein (the entrée), only 58 percent chose a fruit and 59 percent chose a vegetable. And among those who put the various types of food on their trays, only 75 percent took even a single bite of the protein, while only 24 percent ate a bite of their vegetables."

Researchers also noted that there are several factors that influenced how much food the students ate, such as the presence or absence of their teacher, the noise level in the cafeteria, the length of the lunch period and even the size the pieces of food had been cut into.

“We have been thinking that if young children choose healthy food, they will eat it,” said Susan Gross, a research associate at Johns Hopkins. “But our research shows that is not necessarily so.”

According to Daren Bakst, a research fellow in agricultural policy at The Heritage Foundation:

"This study simply supports what school nutrition officials have been saying.  There’s major food waste.  It’s difficult to conclude that a law called the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is a success when the kids are hungry—you can’t be healthy if you are hungry all the time.  Getting the kids to eat should first and foremost be the primary concern.

However, the entire debate surrounding the new school nutrition standards often misses a fundamental question.  Do we need federal bureaucrats and Michelle Obama to dictate how kids should eat through this program, or should parents, possibly along with local governments, make decisions regarding nutrition?  Specifically, it is a question of whether we respect federal bureaucrats and their one-size-fits-all approach more than parents who know the best interests of their children."

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