JANUARY 04, 2012 by PETER MCALLISTER Is this statement true? “If
SpongeBob SquarePants is the mayor of Minneapolis, then Napoleon
lost the Battle of Waterloo.” It is. On the other hand, this is
not: “If Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo, then Spongebob
Squarepants is the Mayor of Minneapolis.” Confused? Welcome to
our government-school curricula. In the July/August 2011 issue
of The Freeman, Neal McClusky warned of the efforts of the U.S.
Department of Education to establish a national curriculum in
our schools (“Coming Soon: The Federal Department of
Standardized Minds”). As a teacher, I agree this would be a
serious mistake. A monolithic school system would eliminate what
little opportunity for innovation educators still possess and
would force students into cookie-cutter courses, regardless of
the students’ needs and abilities. It would lower our
disgraceful levels of academic performance even further and,
most ominously, it could facilitate the establishment of a
national system of propaganda masquerad