No To "America" and "Americans"

The Editorials&Opinion section of the Detroit News covers the story about the Michigan Education Assessment Program that requires that the word "America" and "Americans" be expunged from all curricula and ordered teachers not to use the words.
The article was written by Michael Warren who is an Oakland County Circuit Court judge, a former member of the State Board of Education and a board member of the Michigan Center for Civic Education.
---Larry Everett

No to America
What a state social studies consultant is telling educators in e-mails about using "America" and "Americans" in tests and courses:

"I have promised teachers that we would delete the use of American [when we are really ONLY referring to the United States] from the GLCEs (grade level content expectations) so that everything is consistent and correct as soon as it was feasible."
"It is ethnocentric for the United States to claim the entire hemisphere."
-- Karen Todorov, Michigan Department of Education

Keep 'America' in Michigan schools

State bureaucrats want to do what Stalin, Osama could only dream about
Michael Warren

Censoring the word "America" from our own schools is something Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden would never have thought possible. Michigan has done it without a whimper.

In perhaps a well-intentioned, but pernicious example of political correctness, the Michigan Department of Education is attempting to ban the "America" and "American" from our public schools. 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.

One can only imagine how teachers struggle to meet the semantic dictates of an educational bureaucracy gone awry. According to the department, before the American Revolution, George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were North Americans. But so were the French colonists in the Louisiana Territory, the Spanish settlers in Mexico and the British colonists in Canada -- not to mention the Native Americans.

No 'American' Revolution?

After the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers no longer qualified as North Americans, but apparently the British, Spanish, French and Native Americans did. What people in the United States are to be called after the Revolution is not clear, so long as they are not referred to as Americans.

Although the style protocol does not require educators to change formal titles such as "America the Beautiful," the students will apparently now believe the song is about a hemisphere and not a nation. The American Revolution is now the North American Revolution. Little did the writers of the Contract with America in 1994 realize that they were making an agreement with Mexico and Canada. The Voice of America obviously is broadcasting the inspirational messages of Brazil and Belize across the globe.

'Internationally friendly'

The Michigan Department of Education considers the dictate "internationally friendly." Why being friendly to an international audience or perspective is important in teaching and learning American history is incomprehensible.

That we would sacrifice our language to the altar of internationalism is a betrayal to the American spirit. Indeed, the whole idea of America is to be a beacon of light, a shining city on the hill, which inspires the rest of the world.

The word "America" is the most important word of all in learning about the history of the United States and our civics. America is an inspiration and an aspiration for generations of souls who strove, and continue to strive, for freedom and liberty.

Ideals matter...

There is much more that may get your blood pressure up, so...Read the Whole Thing.

UPDATE :
A followup article from the Michigan Department of Education by Martin Ackley, Public Information Officer.

State is not Removing "America" from Classroom Instruction in Michigan

May 24, 2006

LANSING -The Michigan Department of Education is not taking the word “America” or “American” out of the classrooms of Michigan.

In an opinion piece crafted by Michael Warren in today’s Detroit News, the former State Board of Education member incorrectly states that the Michigan Department of Education has “ordered that our hard-working teachers not utter the words.”

No such edict has gone out to school teachers across Michigan, nor will one, said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan. He explained that an independent association of Social Studies educators has discussed the issue of official U.S. documents or titles, but that any recommendations regarding changes in school curriculum have not even made it to his desk for review.

Inasmuch, Flanagan emphatically stated that, if such a recommendation ever came to his desk, it would be stopped in its tracks.

“We are not seeking to do away with the terms ‘America’ or ‘American’ from classroom instruction,” Flanagan said. “It’s not going to happen. I consider myself an American. We live in the United States of America. We are citizens of the United States of America. But the vernacular is that we’re Americans.”

These curriculum associations consist of curriculum content supervisors who represent diverse views and opinions.

“These are advisory groups,” Flanagan said. “The conversations and internal communications between members of an independent association have been misconstrued as Department of Education policy. This is not a Department of Education policy, nor will it ever be our policy while I’m here. I would never approve the removal of ‘America’ or ‘American’ from our classrooms. Not on my watch.”

That is the The Whole Thing