The Texas School Board That Governs Ahmed's School Once Worried Their Curriculum Was Too Pro-Islam
This week, a Texas school system had a Muslim teenager arrested for building a clock. But for residents of Irving, TX the school’s knee jerk reaction probably wasn’t much of a surprise—after all, this is a school board that once requested a study to ensure its curriculum wasn’t too pro-Islam.
According to the Dallas Morning News, which broke the clock story, the Irving Independent District school board just about lost its shit in 2012 when a Tea Party-affiliated nutcase (I’m guessing) forwarded officials a chain email with the subject, “IRVING ISD INDOCTRINATING ISLAM.”
The email’s allegations—that CSCOPE, a third-party curriculum system used at the school was indoctrinating students—were obviously ludicrous. But the school board—perhaps afraid of what might happen if they didn’t immediately forward it to 10 friends—took it a step further. They had a study conducted.
So that’s how Region 10’s director of instruction ended up at Monday’s work session, fighting through a chest cold to re-reassure the school board.
The director, Jan Moberly, said she hired a “very socially and fiscally conservative” former social studies teacher who “watches Glenn Beck on a regular basis” to seek out any Islamic bias in CSCOPE.
“I asked her to look for anything she would consider the least bit controversial,” Moberly told the board. That entailed reading through every textbook and cross referencing each religious reference with the CSCOPE guidelines.
The paid consultant’s qualifications were 1) being socially and fiscally conservative, and 2) watching Glenn Beck on a regular basis—and still she found no evidence of a pro-Islam bias.
Pretty sure Ahmed Mohamed could have told them that, for free.
