Unbelievable

Get ready to see red. Michigan schools ban use of word "American" to refer to, you know, "Americans," and prefer to speak of "America" as consisting of the entire Western Hemisphere.

You're not going to believe this. In fact, I'm still not sure it's not a hoax. It seems too incredible to be true.

Even though the word "America" appears in the department's own civics and government benchmarks, the department's style protocol for the Michigan Education Assessment Program requires that "America" and "Americans" be expunged from our testing and grade level expectations. Last week, the department ordered that our hard-working teachers not utter the words.

We're all 'North Americans'

The Department of Education asserts that "Americans" includes Mexicans, Canadians and others in the Western Hemisphere, so referring to U.S. residents as Americans is inappropriate. In the department's view, "America" happens to include South, Central and North America. Accordingly, when referring to the colonial period, the state bureaucracy requires teachers to refer to "the colonies of North America" or "North Americans." After the American Revolution, the nation is called the United States (not of America).

The state's edict would be laughable if it were not so disgraceful. Instead of focusing on better teaching methods and educational resources to help our hard-working teachers and parents, the Department of Education spends its energy on confusing, misleading, historically inaccurate and counterproductive wordplay.

I have a suggestion for some more wordplay. Rather than referring to them as "Michigan Department of Education officials," let's start referring to them as "former Michigan Department of Education officials," as quickly as legally possible.

Via Instapundit.

posted by Ace at 01:07 PM

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