A New Hampshire couple felt obliged to remove their oldest son from his high school after learning of the reading materials assigned to his class.

Fox News reports, “The book is a first-person account of author Barbara Ehrenreich’s attempts to make ends meet while working minimum wage jobs in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. But in addition to taking aim at the American Dream, and arguing for a higher minimum wage, Taylor says Ehrenreich also takes aim at Christians and other groups in the book and uses foul language.”

Aimee Taylor felt obligated to remove her 16-year-old son Jordan Henderson from school after learning that such a book was assigned for reading in a personal finance class, especially since Jordan was entirely offended by the material.

“He started making some comments about the book and I said, ‘Well, just read it. You know you have to read it for school.’ But finally he came home one day and said, ‘I’m not reading this book. I’m done reading this book. I am not reading any more of this book,’ and he slammed it down and said, ‘This is junk!’”

Jordan’s angry reaction prompted his mother to take a look at the book herself. In doing so, she discovered a number of controversial excerpts and elected to read the book in its entirety. “I finished the book that night. I could not put it down because I was just mortified by the take on this book as well as the language, and the Jesus Christian bashing was unbelievable to me, and that it was in our school was just amazing to me,” Aimee explained.

One particular upsetting excerpt focused on a description of Ehrenreich’s attendance of a Christian service in Maine:

It would be nice if someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by a rousing commentary on income inequality and the need for a hike in the minimum wage. But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth. 

In search of a second opinion, Aimee turned to her more moderate husband, Dennis, who, upon reading the book, said, “This is a piece of junk, this book is garbage and does not belong in the school. No matter what you believe politically, this book should not belong in the classroom. It’s really inappropriate for their age.”

Both parents contacted the principal to address their concerns, but to no avail.

Fox News explains, “Roughly three weeks later, a review committee assembled by the school district rules that despite its shortcomings, ‘The book provided valuable insight into the circumstances of the working poor and an opportunity for students to demonstrate the mastery of the ‘Financial Impact’ competency.’”

Perhaps to assuage the angry parents, the assistant superintendent, Chip McGee, told the union representative that the district will evaluate the personal finance class to determine if the book can be replaced with another less controversial one, and that in the meantime, the teacher should be notifying parents before assigning something so objectionable.

The Taylor parents remain unsatisfied, however. “We’ve eliminated Christmas, we’ve eliminated all these things because we don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but here we’re going to hand out this book? This is anti-God, anti-religion, it’s racial. I mean it crosses a wide spectrum of very touchy and very insulting issues to most human beings and I think that even with a parental consent it’s not enough. They need to boot that book out of there,” Aimee declared.

As disappointing as the incident at Bedford High School may be, it certainly should not come as a surprise, especially upon considering the recommended reading on the National Education Association website: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals — a book that describes the subversive steps to revolution.

According to Alinsky, the ends do justify the means.

Disinterested in disguising his values, Alinsky dedicated his Rules for Radicals to “the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history … the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”

Some schools are beginning to see a backlash against the assignment of such controversial reading materials, however, but further progress is necessary before any real change will be seen.

The brave challenge mounted by the Taylor parents ultimately resulted in a victory for the school, unfortunately, as the school is permitted to continue teaching from Nickel and Dimed, and the parents now must home-school their son. They do plan to attend a December 13 Bedford School Board meeting to reinforce their stance on removing the book from the curriculum of the personal finance class, however.

Making the case for home schooling is becoming easier and easier as stories such as this appear.

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James Salata said:

... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...35699.html She's another atheist, socialist, communist, antiChristian "Jew"...

December 08, 2010

R Jensen said:

wisdom is vindicated by her deeds "...John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon!' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds."

December 08, 2010

Christian said:

Are we surprised? As I was once an Atheist now BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN, the sad fact is that this kind of stuff can be laid right at the foot of the Pulpit and the "church". Infact ALL of our problems in this country are because "the church" has done a terrible job of actually being "the church". God saved me nearly 5 years ago and I'm a committed Evangelist and when I wittness most people have never heard the Gospel. To be sure, most "christians" are unable to tell me what the Gospel is! What a shame! BTW, we Homeschool for just this kind of reason...

December 08, 2010

Gene R Swank said:

... I pulled my 2 oldest children from high school and had them study and take the ged. I have 2 brothers and a sister who home schooled there children. My youngest lived with his mother and stayed in public school, He has been in jail, has used drugs, has many many gross tattoos. I only had him every other weekend and that was not enough to overcome the peer pressure from the public school system. Our public schools are a training ground for the far left and they are destroying our children.

December 09, 2010

David Hopkins said:

Sad What do tattoos have to do with a book in school demeaning Christ? I own and operate a tattoo shop and by no means are any of my clients gross. I think its the people pointing fingers at everyone else who are the problem in this country. We allow too many liberal views to become laws and now we have every idiot running around trying to tell everyone else how to live their lives. Honestly, we need to just focus on being good individuals and then the good Nation will arise.

December 15, 2010

Gene R Swank said:

tatoos I was not demeaning tatoos, I was demeaning the gross ones my son has all the way up his neck and both arms. These were not done in a pro shop, they were done by some untalented gang member with nazi crosses and foul language. My daughter has very tastfully done flowers down both of her upper arms. The tatoos my son has keeps him from getting decent jobs as they cant be covered with a normal shirt collar. I apoligize to you and your trade. Gene

December 15, 2010

David Hopkins said:

... I apologize my friend, I am jumpy about my trade. I work hard to keep a reputation because of all the knuckleheads out there tattooing in their houses and giving the real tradesmen a bad name. There are certain doctors that will remove your sons tattoos by laser if they keep him from getting work and a new start. I hope the best for your son, I see too many people held down by their mistakes. I myself have an anti-racial unaffiliated tattoo parlor and plan to keep it that way. I only hire non-drug using, pro-constitution tattoo artists. I will never allow the party atmosphere in my parlor.

December 15, 2010