Today, Dallas Channel 8 News released a video establishing that the $1.3 million dollar Foreign Language Assistance Program (F.L.A.P. Grant) recently awarded to Mansfield, Texas school district to help establish Arabic curriculum and language studies in Mansfield ISD by 2012, has been delayed due to a wave of protest voiced by parents during a recent parent teachers conference.
A statement by Mansfield ISD's Department of Communications cites that there are in fact "no mandatory Arabic Classes" but goes on to state - perhaps nullifying the prior statement - that the embedded "curriculum writing process for classes k-12 has stopped."
That contradiction is hard to miss and it's not a stretch to say that the program, which completely caught parents off guard, since there was no previous notification nor parental involvement with the decision making process, caused a lot of flap and was a complete flop.
That's no surprise considering that Texas is a highly conservative state known for its often controversial but unrelenting conservative influence on the content in their textbooks. Many consider that Texas is to education what Arizona is to illegal immigration, an anathema to the left who fear they are losing ground they may never recover with every Tea Party victory and the growing strength of the Republican party in Texas.
Outraged Mansfield parents were vocal and their fears about exposure to the Islamic culture were apparent, with one father plainly stating that if students couldn't study the Christian religion, he sure didn't think they should be studying the Islamic culture nor religion.
A transcript of the statement's outline follows.
- Mansfield ISD has slowed the process of implementation to get parent input for curriculum creation.
- There are no "mandatory Arabic classes" as being falsely reported in the media.
- As part of language acquisition and development, the early grades would have elements of Arabic language within the framework of the state-mandated curriculum.
- In the K-6 grades (Davis Elementary and Cross Timbers Intermediate), the curriculum-writing process has stopped.
- In grades 7-12 (T.A. Howard Middle and Summit High School), Arabic language will be offered as elective courses to meet foreign language requirement.
- This project is federally funded for $1.3 million dollars over a 5 year period.