A FLAP Develops Over Mandatory Arabic Classes in Texas
**Written by Doug Powers
If one of the main goals of the Department of Education is to educate parents on why they might want to consider the option of private or home schooling, then mission accomplished:
MANSFIELD (CBSDFW.COM) – Some Students at Mansfield ISD schools could soon be learning Arabic as a required language. The school district wants students at select schools to take Arabic language and culture classes as part of a federally funded grant.
The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was awarded to Mansfield ISD last summer by the U.S. Department of Education.
As part of the five-year $1.3 million grant, Arabic classes would be mandatory at Cross Timbers Intermediate School and Kenneth Davis Elementary School. The program would also be optional for students at T. A. Howard Middle School and Summit High School.
Parents at Cross Timbers say they were caught off-guard by the program, and were surprised the district only told them about it in a meeting Monday night between parents and Mansfield ISD Superintendent Bob Morrison.
The DOE has identified Arabic as a ‘language of the future.’ But parent Joseph Balson was frustrated by the past. “Why are we just now finding out about it?” asked Balson. “It’s them (Mansfield ISD) applying for the grant, getting it approved and them now saying they’ll go back and change it only when they were caught trying to implement this plan without parents knowing about it.”
According to a posting at the school’s website, this is a vital component in being able to compete in the 21st century.
Presumably the students have already mastered English and, of course, Spanish, so they can move on to Arabic:
In 2009 a FLAP grant went to a school in Oklahoma, which used the money for Chinese language education. Now that makes more sense because someday the kids will need to communicate with the people who are repossessing the country because it was borrowed-and-spent into oblivion with things like FLAP grants.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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why not just issue vaseline for the buggering?
It’s so much easier to explain Obamacare in Arabic than in English.
FIFY
The camel’s nose under the tent, soon to be followed by mandatory halal food in the cafeteria, mandatory that women cover up and mandatory sharia law for all..if our muslim freindly government insists. Let ‘em try.
I’m guessing the text books are scuicide bombing manuals.
I’m with OK on their choice. It make more sense. I have a real problem with the rop type, they have their fingers in alot of our country one inch at a time. I would be really upset if they started with the prayer rugs and reading that book of theirs! We can not have the Jewish or Christian faith in schools, you better not have the rop type!
L
The schools kids will have a load of fun learning a useless language with lots of sounds they can’t pronounce. They’ll ridicule it mercilessly, like they should, and once the grant money is spent, this stupidity will go away.
Or maybe the teachers will give them names like this:
Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz Bin Abdulrahman Bin Faisal Bin Turki Bin Abdullah Bin Muhammad al Saud
Most school kids will just blow this useless class off, then balance the F with an A in PE.
I am hearing a lot of remarks in connection with this story about the presumed language(s) of the future. Spanish, Chinese, and now Arabic seem to be the leading contenders.
What is implicit in all of this is the unspoken consensus that our culture and our language — now clearly dominant in the world — are heading for the dustbin of history. And our own Leftists playing the roll of those little guys with brooms on the Olympic curling teams.
(Maybe we need to think about becoming the terrorists of the future and how, when we are the ones “marginalized,” we can resist…those of us who don’t want to be swept into the dustbin.)
Mansfield ISD; “Ve haf vays of making you talk . . . Arabic.”
Those schools are just “seizing the future” ….
….the future we will all enjoy (use term loosely) if the anti-American agenda of Obama, along with his progressive and Islamist partners, continues to succeed!
According to a Mansfield parent who called into the Limbaugh show, the program is “temporarily on hold”.
Maybe if we issued an arabic version of the US Constitution they would understand it. English has devolved into a game of “six degrees from Kevin Bacon” trying to connect words to meaning.
It was so much easier when you could just look up words in a dictionary and rely on plain definitions, like when our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to mean what it says. Whatever THAT means.
Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few non-native Arabic speakers become proficient in the language. They can be used as translators when we inevitably end up at war with the entire M.E. (and Europe, the way things are going).
They’ll be passing out arabic translations of the “Anarchists Cookbook”. That one was required reading for many of our leftists-in-charge in the heady days of their youth and they all consider the material compeletly relevant to this day.
The DOE simply wants our children to understand the meaning of the words yelled at them by some future Muslim terrorist, such as;
يموت الخنزير الاميركية! الكافر الكلب!
Which, when translated, means, “Die American pig! Infidel dog!“
But of course, if the liberals have their way, our kids will not have the right to bear arms, and defend themselves, which will result in their deaths, but reduce, ultimately, conservative numbers, CO2 gases, and other things dangerous to progressive ideology.
O-o-o-kay!!!
Gettig us all ready for our dhimmitude.
Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization.
Accept that and live free.
Reject that and accept dhimmitude.
another great reason for abolishing the U.S. Dept. of Education.
Get the hell out of our lives!
Quislings!
Evil Bastards! Lemmings!
In Texas???? Is it April 1st?
Hey Mansfield ISD, send the money back!
The French didn’t have to learn German!
You can just put your hands up! That’s universal.
Sadly there are fools everywhere. Lynching still illegal?
Doesn’t a morning
go against the Left’s efforts to remove prayer from school?
Make up your mind, Libtards.
Cut funding to Dept. Education (or eliminate it).
{I know. Prayer is okay as long as it isn’t Christian}
If you are not Home Schooling your kids then you are part of the problem.
It’s harder to justify funds for a school with no students.
I’m for eliminating it forever. Another unconstitutional and wasteful Federal dept. Leave education to the states and lower levels of government.
Since Arabic culture is based on Sharia, this is de facto teaching religion in school. Islam is a social & political system in addition to a religion. You can’t have own without the other. The koran covers, legal issues, social issues, marital/family issues and personal issues, such as what hand to eat with, what step to put forward when entering/exiting a bathroom and how to wipe your a$%.
Teaching kids about Arabic culture is teaching them islam. But I’m guessing the curriculum won’t include rape, wife beatings, beheadings, amputation of limbs, lashing (for the crime of being with a non-related male), a womans testimony worth half of a mans in a court of law, daughters inheriting half of what a son inherits, stoning for adultry (actual or just accused), etc etc etc.
This isn’t the same as teaching Spanish and having a pinata on cinco de mayo, or doing the dragon dance during Chinese New Year, this is sharia encroachment into our society. And extremely dangerous.
Why not teach our children gibberish? it’s easier and the union teachers get paid the same.
I would to see the info that led them to this conclusion.
Arab nations are emerging from either a theocracy or thugocracy? Nope, not seen enough positive signs of that yet.
Arab nations are developing free market solutions to the poverty of their people? Nope, not very encouraging there.
Arab nations have quite a few Muslims whose stated goal is a world caliphate? Hmmm.
I think they’ll be sending the money, the school board, and the entire school administration back.
This is seriously WRONG! American tax monies from the Dept of Ed will be spent teaching children to read the language of sworn enemies of anyone who is not practicing Islam – infidels!
Americans need to read the book: What Every American Needs to Know About the Qu’ran by Wm Federer.
The Islamic goals are to penetrate every aspect of American life – local, state, fed govts, education from pre-schools through grad schools, every financial institutions – All 50 states now have connections to banks that allow
Texas has some of the oldest and most active Islamic communities in the country.
The issue about teaching the Arabic language is MUCH MORE critical than most Americans realize. That’s WHY the progress of the Muslims in America, with over 2500 mosques built in North America in the last 20 years, has been so astounding.
Their leaders KNOW that Americans are NOT aware or NOT informed about how serious the Islamic leaders and 100′s of organizations are about winning their Geo-Political-Religious warfare throughout the World. It can and will happen in American as long as Americans are afraid to speak out for fear of being labeled “intolerant”. Wake-Up!
Call me “intolerant” everyday, but I believe WHAT our enemies say: They will eliminate all Cristians, Jews, and all other “infidels” who refuse to accept their Sharia Laws and Islamic teachings! jb
I wonder how International Baccalaureate is involved? They have to be to have a program(me) parents don’t want forced into the schools, and forced on the students. I hope the parents take their kids out of this school. They can’t ALL be put in jail. you can find the The Truth about IB at that link.
judybeth,
This reminds me of a great idea that was floating around a few years ago to save money by eliminating the federal Department of Education.
Couldn’t we revive that for the 2012 campaign season?
***
Bump the Department of (poor) Education up to the top of liquidation / defunding list. Shut down the useless gubmint departments that suck up our money and trash our country.
***
Followed closely by the Department of (no / subsidized) Energy, the EPA, the BIA, the Commerce Department, the BLM, etc. We can’t afford these circus clown agencies any longer.
***
Forget about teaching Arabic. Teach ROTC and basic marksmanship instead in case the day comes when we must “reason” with the growing Jihadi fifth columns in our midst. The enemy is inside the wire now. We learned all we need to know about them on 9/11/2001 and on other dates.
***
John Bibb
***
So long as “inflammable” and “flammable” continue to mean the same thing, I am going to assume that when I’m called “intolerant”, the mean “tolerant”. It’s the new English.
rocketman…we seem to be on the same wavelength today!
If the parents want the kids to learn about the rop type, they should watch Glenn’s Fox show daily and read jihadwatch.org. They give you and the kids the true facts on the rop type!
L
Excuse me, this is Texas. We need to have mandatory English classes in some of our schools!
It sounds like phase I of the Muslim conversion of the U.S. to Islam is underway. Briton is starting to see the light and the damages the multi-cultural-ism has caused over there.
Liberals are slowing transforming our society into their warped vision of society and they’re doing it with a small minority of the population and with the help of the U.S. media.
All I’ll say is that the Founding Fathers got it right the first time.
I am one of the few people who is publicly unwilling to accept Islam in my daily life.
I have:
a) Ended a relationship with a woman who was unwilling to give up Islam
b) Ended a friendship with an individual over his insistannce on practising Islam
c) Condemned/Insulted Islam in my place of business without fear of reprisal
d) Spoken against Islam during social gatherings regardless of consequences
It is important to speak out against it on the internet, but I find all too often, people become quiet and subserviant toward Islam when in social settings for fear of not being accepted by the group.
I say F*CK the group if the group insists on accepting Islam. I will always metaphorically urinate and sh*t on Islam whenever possible. I would actually do such an act for real, but my urine and fecal matter has more worth than to be wasted on such a joke of a cult.
Mohammed was a pedophile and lunatic, that’s it. His vision of ‘allah’ was a combination of his desire to create a belief system to rival Christianity and his hallucinations experienced from too much Opium.
Ignatius Reilly,Eliminating the DOE, along with any other government agency that uses the alphabet letters for identification, is an idea that should be REVIVED immediately!Pasadena Phil,We must insist that our schools teach the “new English” as well as the “old English” language classes! Hummm, did the DOE eliminate English language classes for fear of not being “politically correct”?PC is a mental illness! jb
Homeschooling is legal, as are private schools.
I don’t believe in the concept of politically correct because that would assume that everyone can and should think alike.
When people use the term ‘politically correct’ around me, I correct them and say ‘you mean politically liberal’.
If you want to confuse a liberal, ask them if the Koran is a “living document”.
However, you might want to refrain asking a Muslim that question…..
I say we give the libtards a choice. If they want to keep the department of education, then all 50 states have to pass an amendment to their constitutions mandating a full voucher system for schools. No socialist sliding scales where you only get a percentage of what the state spends on each student depending on your yearly salary. All vouchers are for the full amount that each state spends per student.
Then in a year or two, you eliminate the DOE! Two birds, one stone.
LOOK AT THIS WRITING
Now imagine you are a 3rd grader or 4th grader. You have just learned how to make letters and put them together in English. Now imagine being a parent and trying to help your children with homework. And this stuff below looks like scribble…especially if you have NOT been raised around it. Most other languages, inc. Spanish use the same lettering. This has got to be a joke!
يموت الخنزير الاميركية! الكافر الك
You think that’s bad, try learning Mandarin. There are four different pitches or tones even when making the same sound.
We could make a compromise of only teach Arabic on days when kids are suffering from colds and sore throats. The Arabic language often sounds like it is spoken by those that have too much phlegm in their throats.
This program has been “slowed down”. More info here.
Danish – If Muslim men are able to go outside in any attire than meets their fancy, and conversely, Muslim women are to be covered from head to toe so that men are not distracted by their beauty; does this not suggest that men are the weaker sex? Women are strong enough to ignore superficialities while men can’t.
We all know the real reason why Muslim men cover their women – so that they (the men) don’t feel inadequate at the thought of being compared to other men which could happen if a woman started to draw the attention of other males.
That’s one reason why I couldn’t ever accept Islam – I want my woman to be experienced. And to be experienced, she has to have shown herself to another man in her past.
***
HI 123UPNORTH–#39. I love it when you are in one of your rare charitable moods! Watch your back.
***
John Bibb
***
On a positive note, the Mansfield ISD acknowledges that they can combine the Arabic culture courses with the FFA/4-H goat herding class.
Rocketman: Thanks for the compliment.
Unfortunately in Canada, concealed-carry is against the law. I can watch my back all I want, but it aint going to do any good. As they say in victim phraseology ‘When seconds count, the police are only minutes away handing out a traffic ticket for a seatbelt violation.’
The only thing that works besides speaking out is to keep moving north as the liberal class invades the places that I stay. Liberals don’t like the rugged climate, so usually a few hours north of Toronto is a safe bet. If Al Gore is right and global warming comes to Fruition, I am going to have to move so far north I would become Santa’s closest neighbour.
Class warfare again – the goat herders vs the sheep herders.
They better teach sex ed and condom use with that goat herding class because Arabic studies and goat herding is a dangerous combination, repoductively speaking.
Can’t wait to see their marching band at half-time.
Let me guess, they want to use the koran as textbook.
BTW – why are we the only people on earth who don’t seriously teach English to our students?
They randomly throw rocks at whoever…
Wasn’t this program designed for Manhattan, so everyone can read the “Victory Mosque” plaque at Ground Zero?
By the way, speaking of goat herding, did anyone see the outdoorsman episode with Bear Grylls, where he ate raw goat testicles after been given the ‘delicacy’ by a desert nomad?
Out of all the parts of the goat to be consumed and treated as a delicacy, this group of wanderers decides on the testicles?
I don’t want to jump to conclusions…
I wonder how you say, “All keffiyeh, no goat herd.” in Arabic?
Aloha – LOL !!!
Did you read about the woman in New Mexico who was given a yogurt sample by a supermarket employee and upon putting a portion of the yogurt in her mouth, immediately spit it out onto the floor. It seems she was able to tell instantly that the yogurt was pure, for it had male semen intermixed within it.
She went home and complained to her boyfriend that she recognized the taste of semen in the sample.
Here is the link:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/revolting/shopper-ingested-semen-tainted-yogurt-sample
Felt bad for the woman, but couldn’t help being amused as to how quickly she realized that there wasn’t just milk ingredients in her sample.
One thing is for sure, there is no way she could be passed off as a virgin for a Muslim wedding after that episode.
…that the yogurt wasn’t pure
“Barack”?
I will NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER…Did I mention NEVER? allow my grandkids to be forced to learn Arabic. There is only one reason they would ever learn that disgusting, ugly language and that is if they decided to become interpreters. This country will have a cultural WAR before We the People will submit to the mooslums. NOT.GOING TO.HAPPEN.
All our side has to do is pass a law that only those employed in the private sector are eligible to vote. If we can do that, we can defeat and permanently distinguish left-wing ideology forever.
“I don’t always drink beer with goat testicles, but when I do, I prefer DOS EQUIS.”
“Stay thirsty, my friends.”
Did you know that yogurt was discovered in 1868 by Dr. Bjorn Boogstratten, a Swedish gynecologist?
Aloha
I think “Barack” is more closely associated with “empty djellaba”.
Hangfire – where do you suspect he got his initial sample from?
Sorry about that one, but I had to say it. If I get banned, it’s been nice knowing everyone.
Michelle, you’re the best.
The next time you hear someone tell you that Canadians are all quiet, polite and well-behaved, tell them them about me – 123upnorth !!!
Probably includes stoning of cheerleaders….gotta learn the culture and all.
Did you know that also in 1868, the condom was invented in what is today Saudi Arabia by a goat herder who learned how to make condoms from the small intestines of a goat?
It was not until 1921 that the British improved the original design by removing the small intestines from the goats first. Before long, they were packaging them in those impossible-to-open-when-you-need-them packages we are familiar with today.
“…next on Modern Marvels, here on the History Channel.”
I know all the foreign language I need to get by:
Dos Cervezas, por favor.
Zwei bieren, Bitte.
Fancy a pint, wot?
That was funny!
Funny, Latin is refered to as a Dead White Guy Language but all of a sudden Arabic is the Language of the Future even though that language is a dead one.
You only need to learn one sentence in Arabic, “Don’t cut my head off!”
Get stoned with Cheerleaders…. kewwwlllll
Jeff Spicoli
The kids who learn Arabic will be able to understand what the Arabs are saying without the filtering of translators.
I don’t think that the bureaucrats thought this out.
Friend of mine reminded me of a line attributed to Admiral “Bull” Halsey in regards to the Japanese language just prior to the end of WWII.
“When we’re done with them, Japanese will only be spoken in Hell!”
I can see a similar line being used here…
Wow I would never have imagined seemingly normal people get enraged at a LANGUAGE!
1. The operative word was “M A N D A T O R Y.”
That’s why we’re enraged.
2. I have never in my life been normal. Normal people don’t spend 20 years on submarines.
3. Choose a side and support it. I know you were taught in public school that each side is equal, but you were lied to.
It’s not the language that we object to, it’s the culture behind the language.
If they taught mandatory Islam indoc classes, I’d agree with you. But, its just a language. No need for worry; Chinese and Arabic are moving up in world importance, but English is still going to be number 1 for a long time.
It’s not the LANGUAGE! For me it’s the use of Federal dollars that could be spent in far more useful ways. The US ranks behind emerging nations in Math and Science for a very good reason. One of them being the use of precious dollars teaching our children a language that has questionable usefulness for now and the future. How about funding for Science and Math programs that will help us educate our children to be the future innovators we will clearly need to compete.
If the schools were to actually teach American history and culture with an emphasis on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, then maybe there would be opportunity to explore others, until then, Nyet!
MANSFIELD (CBSDFW.COM) – Some Students at Mansfield ISD schools could soon be learning Arabic as a required language. The school district wants students at select schools to take Arabic language and culture classes as part of a federally funded grant.
Did you miss the part that said they would include arabic culture in the program? It’s not just the language, but the culture.
And as soon as they include Christian “Culture”, Jewish “Culture”, etc etc. in the classroom, there may be less of a complaint.
Although arabic/muslim culture is the only one that advocates murder of non-believers as part of the “Culture”. So my objection would still stand.
Chinese yes, Arabic no. The culture is dead. They offer no advances to civilization. They make nothing anyone wants. Military translators – fine. Mandatory high school languages – the work of idiots sucking your tax money.
The school tried to sneak it into the curriculum. What are they hiding and why was it necessary to make it mandatory? Learning about the Constitution should be mandatory and not the version condoned by bho. Public schools have gotten way out of line. Home school and cut funding to public schools till there is a change for the better.
China moving up in world importance, I can understand, but Arab nations? They’ve have had the benefits of being in the richest oil producing lands for how many years? Are their people any better off? Have we seen a great cultural awakening in terms of a more democratic form of governing? If anything, we see a Arab world that is moving further back in progress. No, I don’t see them as an economic force, competing with the US. Though if you want to talk about dominance through force, maybe you have a point.
Force? Mayor Bllomberg wants to go to lower Manhattan and lay prostrate. No force necessary.
or Bloomberg as the case may be…
They do not teach; they indoctrinate.
My kids were told that their parents were racists, war-mongering, homophobic, capitalist pigs.
On February 8th, 2011 at 4:43 pm, Hangfire said…
And not to forget that old standby of cross-cultural, linguistic improvisation:
Komminzie here, bitte, freulein, mit die hosen in die han.
What discoveries, or inventions in science have been contributed by the Arab peoples in the last two centuries? (Check out the history of the Nobel Prizes.)
Not withstanding, some bright star in the Department of Education thinks it is important for our future to teach children Arabic? Really? I’d like to know the reasoning behind that.
For future commerce, I would think Mandarin Chinese would be way more appropriate to teach our children, and would be an asset. But, Arabic? Please.
This is reason #234,895,723 why we homeschool.
Although not all Muslims speak, read, or write Arabic, clearly people are outraged at the teaching of Arabic merely because they are racist, bigoted, xenophibic, Islamiphobes who are bitter clingers who cling to their guns, their Bible, their Religion, and who are afraid of pepole who don’t look like them.
(snicker, snicker, Grin. ha, ha, ha)
Practicing my left wing, anti-US, anti-Conservative talking points and false accusations, a la Chris Matthews, Jane Madow, Keith Olberman, Bill Maher, Islamic apologists, et al.
txvet2 said:
Actually, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few non-native Arabic speakers become proficient in the language. They can be used as translators when we inevitably end up at war with the entire M.E. (and Europe, the way things are going).
Indeed , someone will have to Mirandize all the POWs.
Yes, Arabic and Islamic nations aren’t making any progress, like the Chinese are. But they are large in numbers, and a constant threat to world stability. The more translators and people proficient in their language the better, both militarily and to give them more exposure to Western ideals.