Senate candidate strikes at problems with school board

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, March 8, 2010.  Cherilyn Eagar is taking an hour away from her campaign for U.S. Senate to testify at the Alpine School District Board Meeting regarding a controversial and offensive Leftist political slogan and website that has parents in one of the most conservative counties in the United States reeling.  Eagar, a mother of seven, grandmother of ten and a former teacher, will add her voice to those of concerned parents in the Alpine School District who will be there to protest.  The Board convenes at the District Office, 575 North 100 East in American Fork, on Tuesday, March 9, at 6:00 p.m.  A public rally, organized by UtahsRepublic.com, will be held outside the office at 5:30 p.m.  To voice a comment if you cannot attend that meeting, simply call the District at 801-610-8400.

Eagar believes the administration has exposed its students to opinions many find offensive.  Earlier this year, the District’s official website was linked to “America: Republic or Democracy?” an article by William P. Meyers, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from California.

“The District either completely failed to do its due diligence before directing school children to an outspoken socialist politician or it is complicit with the increasingly politically-driven ‘social justice’ curriculum in public schools all over this nation,” says Eagar.  Meyers has been a member of the International Workers of the World (a labor union with Communist Party ties) and Earth First (a longtime eco-terrorism suspect).  He supports universal health care, legalization of marijuana, population control and gay marriage.

Eagar is well acquainted with education programs that subject students to material parents may find objectionable or that violate parents’ educational rights.  “I initiated, funded and provided attorney Matt Hilton with background information to construct the first state Family Education Rights to Privacy Act over 15 years ago here in Utah.  The express purpose of this legislation was to protect children and parents from an educational system that has immersed itself in social and psychological engineering.  What has happened in the Alpine School District is unacceptable and inexcusable and also violation of Utah regulations.  I suspect that if parents take a deeper look they will discover more, that the entire curriculum is infused with environmentalism, globalism and Leftist ideology.”

The link was quickly removed, and the District issued a statement claiming, “It was accidentally linked there.  Our board of education was not aware it was there, the superintendent was not aware . . . It wasn’t supposed to be there.  It doesn’t belong on our Web site.  We don’t endorse what this man teaches or believes.”

A more serious problem has yet to be settled to parents’ satisfaction:  The District office wall has a 30-foot long display which includes the statement, “Enculturating the young in a social and political democracy.”  Webster defines ‘enculturate’ as ‘to cause to adapt to the prevailing cultural patterns of one’s society [or to] socialize.’  Eagar sees this as factually incorrect and outside the school’s purpose.

“Parents send their children to school to learn basic skills such as reading, writing and math,” says Eagar, “They don’t send their children to be ‘adapted’ into a culture, especially one so fundamentally opposed to the community’s conservative standards and values.”

In 1994, Eagar discovered that the Utah Education Code stipulated that the mission of Utah schools was to train students to be global citizens in a participatory democracy.  “Our Founders did not establish a democracy.  They established a republic.  In fact, they despised democracy.  I advocated for a correction, and Representative LaVarr Christensen eventually did make that change.  He also included the requirement that Utah’s school children be taught civics and constitutional principles as the Founders viewed it.”

“It is time for parents to speak out and hold educators accountable.  This is just one of many subtle and deliberate campaigns to mold the views and values of students away from those of their parents.  The entire public education system has been increasingly immersed in this kind of social justice propaganda through outcome-based curriculum, multiculturalism, globalism and environmentalism, and it has been increasingly so for many years now,” said Eagar, echoing the worries of many parents.

“Concerned parents should ask:  Who is running Alpine School District?  What are their political views?  What are the goals of the curriculum?  And who are the people who wrote the curriculum, and what are their political views?  Follow the money and you will find the corruption.”

In over 30 years of conservative advocacy, Cherilyn Eagar, a business owner and former teacher, has extensively researched education policy and spoken to national audiences on education reform.  She served as a parent advisor to Brigham Young University’s Academic Freedom Committee, helped found two family-advocacy organizations and served on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Utah Committee.  She co-authored the first state Family Education Rights to Privacy Act and led a successful grassroots effort to prohibit school-based health clinics, contraceptive distribution and condom demonstrations in classrooms.  During the 2008 Utah legislative session, Eagar provided extensive research to Senator Margaret Dayton to successfully prohibit new funding for another controversial globalist-environmentalist-social justice curriculum known as the International Baccalaureate.  Cherilyn Eagar is proud to support this effort by parents in Alpine School District to retain control over their children’s education.

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Cherilyn Eagar for U.S. Senate – Principles for a Change

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