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California School District Gives Students Absolutely Jaw-Dropping Assignment in Attempt to ‘Meet Common Core Standards’

May. 5, 2014 8:44pm Jason Howerton

The Rialto school district in California is under fire over a stunning eighth-grade assignment that asked students to write an argumentative essay about the Holocaust and “whether or not you believe this was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth.”

The thoroughly debunked idea that the Holocaust was nothing more than a “hoax” created by the Jews has long been alleged by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

The San Bernardino Sun first reported on the 18-page assignment that gives students three sources to use to write their essays. One of the sources reportedly alleges the gassings in concentration camps were a “hoax” and there is no evidence Jews actually died in gas chambers.

(Document and photo credit: San Bernardino Sun/Source: KTLA-TV)

The source, traced to a webpage on biblebelievers.org.au, states: “With all this money at stake for Israel, it is easy to comprehend why this Holocaust hoax is so secretly guarded. In whatever way you can, please help shatter this profitable myth. It is time we stop sacrificing America’s welfare for the sake of Israel and spend our hard-earned dollars on Americans.”

The other two sources were from About.com and History.com, KTLA-TV reports.

In a statement issued Monday, the school district said Interim Superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam would meet with administrators to make sure references to the Holocaust “not occurring” are taken out of current assignments and not included in future assignments.

The Los Angeles-area chapter of the Anti-Defamation League sent an email to the school district blasting the assignment.

“It is ADL’s general position that an exercise asking students to question whether the Holocaust happened has no academic value; it only gives legitimacy to the hateful and anti-Semitic promoters of Holocaust Denial,” the email reportedly states.

In a separate blog post, the ADL said there’s no evidence that the assignment was given as part of a “larger, insidious, agenda.” However, the post continued, “the district seems to have given the assignment with an intent, although misguided, to meet Common Core standards relating to critical learning skills.”

A spokesman for the Rialto school district told KTLA-TV in a statement that the district’s “CORE team” would meet to revise the assignment.

“The Common Core state standards, which have been adopted by most states and the District of Columbia, emphasize critical thinking in students, which is what the assignment is intended to teach, according to school board member Joe Martinez,” The San Bernardino Sun adds.

Programming note: Kyle Olson, the co-author of Glenn Beck’s new book on Common Core,”Conform,” will be joining Beck on radio at 10 a.m. ET and on TV at 5 p.m. ET. Tune into theBlaze radio and TheBlaze TV.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/05/california-school-district-gives-students-jaw-dropping-holocaust-assignment-in-attempt-to-meet-common-core-standards/

POPE DEMANDS 'LEGITIMATE REDISTRIBUTION' OF WEALTH

BY NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the "economy of exclusion" that is taking hold today.

Francis made the appeal during a speech to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the heads of major U.N. agencies who met in Rome this week.

Latin America's first pope has frequently lashed out at the injustices of capitalism and the global economic system that excludes so much of humanity, though his predecessors have voiced similar concerns.

On Friday, Francis called for the United Nations to promote a "worldwide ethical mobilization" of solidarity with the poor in a new spirit of generosity.

He said a more equal form of economic progress can be had through "the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the state, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society."

Francis voiced a similar message to the World Economic Forum in January and in his apostolic exhortation "The Joy of the Gospel." That document, which denounced trickle-down economic theories as unproven and naive, provoked accusations in the U.S. that he was a Marxist.

Francis urged the U.N. to promote development goals that attack the root causes of poverty and hunger, protect the environment and ensure dignified labor for all.

"Specifically, this involves challenging all forms of injustices and resisting the economy of exclusion, the throwaway culture and the culture of death which nowadays sadly risk becoming passively accepted," he said.

Friday's audience came just days after the Holy See was battered in a second round of grilling by a U.N. committee over its record of handling priestly sex abuse. Neither the pope nor Ban spoke of the issue, but Francis referred to another topic at the U.N. hearings: the church's opposition to abortion. He called for respect for life "from conception to natural death" and his denunciation of the "culture of death" echoed previous papal exhortations against abortion.

During the meeting, Ban invited Francis to speak to the United Nations. The Vatican hasn't confirmed any such trip, but Francis is widely expected to visit the U.S. in September 2015 to participate in a church meeting on families in Philadelphia, making a U.N. stop then likely.

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Follow Nicole Winfield atHTTP://WWW.TWITTER.COM/NWINFIELD

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_REL_VATICAN_UN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-09-06-31-28