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Our Mission |
Big government is not simply the size of the budget, or the number of federal programs; it is the role the federal government plays in our daily lives.
We at the Lincoln Heritage Institute will not sit idly by and allow bloated bureaucracies, budensome tax policies, a failing public education system, and out of control regulatory system, and a growing disregard for the rule of law to become an accepted way of life
We have as our purpose, through public education, the revitalization and preservation of our traditional political, social, commercial, and legal environment in which the only limits to achievement are individual ability and effort. |
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Educating Our Children and Environmental Activism |
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By Dr. Charles Bolgiano: Advisor for Environmental Affairs to The Lincoln Heritage Institute.
1997
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is excerpted from an Article in the current issue of the ADDRESS.
Two issues, the environment and education, occupy the interest of the majority of Americans more than any other two topics. Coupling such concerns with the differing interests of vested environmental groups, both liberal and conservative, has rung the bell of alarm among educators, parents and protectors of quality-education.
Critics are saying that too much fear and too few facts have brought the weight of the world on the shoulders of our children. Environmental messages aimed at children in the classroom deliberately predict excessive doom and disaster, and promote concepts of anti-individualism and anti-business. There is a vacuum for accurate information in the classroom to address children's concerns about the health of the planet. Instead, extremists have seized upon the education process to thwart a balanced discussion and presentation of environmental issues.In 1990, President George Bush signed the National Environmental Education Act that gave environmental activist school teachers the tools they needed to create "politically correct" students when it comes to environmentalism. The Problem with programs implemented by many states because of this act is that control over the curriculum was undefined and environmental zealots celebrated knowing they now had the upper hand along with education liberals that were already in place in the school system. Similar scenarios developed in other states. The liberal Goals 2000 and Outcome Based Education supporters had exactly what was needed to further pursue "politically correct" liberal curricula."Many of those who shape the environmental curriculum believe that the purpose of liberal environmentalists is not to weigh conflicting facts, values, aid theories, but to instill a sense of crisis." writes Jo Kwong a Virginia parent and business consultant. Not to be denied is a growing group of MOMS who call -themselves the "Kitchen Militia". Armed with alarming documents and information on Outcome-based Education(OBE), Goals 2000 and other socialist or elitist education programs that threaten to dumb down our children or subject them to behavior modification, the "Kitchen Militia" is focusing in on bringing some truth and awareness to the forefront. They partially blame gloom and doom, crisis driven environmental teachings as cause for once-happy children becoming rebellious, angry, quiet and withdrawn once they are released from home into the public education system.
Parents, educators, and politicians must make the issue of fact-and-not-myth the standard and guideline in teaching environmental science at all grade levels. If it can't be supported by scientific fact, its not science and must not be used.
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Lincoln Heritage Institute lhi@wmis.net
620 Hall Street, Eaton Rapids, MI 48827
In Pennsylvania, 603 N. 3rd. St., Harrisburg, Pa.
Box 656 Main St., Pleasant Valley, NY, 12569 Fax (517) 663-5245
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