National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools
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The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS) is a nonprofit organization that promotes the use of its 300-page Bible curriculum, The Bible in History and Literature, in schools throughout the United States.
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[edit] Overview
NCBCPS was founded on April 8, 1993, by Elizabeth Ridenhour, a Greensboro, NC, paralegal. The organization's annual 990 tax forms, available on Guidestar.org, list Ridenhour as an ordained minister.
According to the organization's Web site, "312 U.S. school districts in 37 states have educated 175,000 of their students using the Bible curriculum as a public high school elective." However, NCBCPS does not release either its curriculum and the list of schools that use it to the public, so these claims cannot be verified.
[edit] Curriculum legality
[edit] Gibson v. Lee County School Board'
The NCBCPS web site states that the organization's curriculum has never been legally challenged, and features an opinion from four lawyers who affirm that the course is constitutional. While the NCBCPS itself has not been sued, the Lee County School Board (Florida) was sued while using the NCBCPS curriculum, for "unconstitutionally advancing religion in public school classrooms." According to the website of People for the American Way Foundation, which represented the plaintiffs in the suit (Gibson v. Lee County School Board), "In January 1998, the court issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited the teaching of the 'New Testament' curriculum and allowed the 'Old Testament' curriculum to be taught only under strict monitoring. The court also ordered the two sides to begin settlement negotiations.
After the court's ruling, the Board agreed to settle the case by withdrawing the 'Old Testament' and 'New Testament' curricula it had adopted and replacing them with a new, objective and non-sectarian course based on a textbook called "An Introduction to the Bible."
[edit] Opinion of the Attorney General of Georgia
In 1999, the Attorney General of Georgia, Thurbert Baker, issued an opinion stating that the state's proposed adoption of the NCBCPS courses could not be assured that they would survive a legal challenge.
[edit] Curriculum Quality
On August 1, 2005, Dr. Mark Chancey, professor of Biblical studies at Southern Methodist University, released a report through the Texas Freedom Network detailing his concerns about the scholarly quality of the curriculum. Chancey stated that the curriculum was improperly sectarian, and contained "shoddy research, factual errors and plagiarism." In particular, Chancey wrote that the curriculum "uses a discredited urban legend that NASA has evidence that two days are missing in time, thus 'confirming' a biblical passage about the sun standing still [pages 116-17];" and that more than one-third of the curriculum's 300 pages are reproduced word-for-word from uncredited sources such as Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia. Hundreds of Biblical scholars at universities around the United States have signed on as endorsers of Chancey's findings. (see link below)
The NCBCPS responded with an August 4 press release asking the public to "consider the source." The release described the Texas Freedom Network as "a small group of far left, anti-religion extremists ... desperate to ban one book – the Bible – from public schools. Elizabeth Ridenour, president of the NCBCPS, said:[citation needed]
“ | At its root, TFN's real objection to our curriculum is not the qualifications of our academic authorities, but the fact that we actually allow students to hold and read the Bible for themselves, and make up their own minds about its claims.
... TFN is actually quite fearful of academic freedom and is trying to deny local schools and communities the right to decide for themselves what elective courses to offer their citizens. This is not freedom, it is totalitarianism. |
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In a subsequent article Dr. Chancey said:[citation needed]
“ | As early as August 12, however, the NCBCPS was mailing school districts a revised edition of its curriculum, along with a letter urging them in bold, italicized, underlined letters to 'please discard any previous editions of the curriculum that you may have.' ... Why a purportedly problem-free book that had been published only five months earlier needed to be completely replaced was not explained. | ” |
On September 9, 2005, the NCBCPS released this updated curriculum at a press conference led by martial arts expert and Bible curriculum advocate Chuck Norris.
Robert Marus of the Associated Baptist Press Washington Bureau wrote that the revision of the curriculum "incorporat[ed] many of the changes recommended by an organization [the NCBCPS] characterized as 'anti-religion extremists.'"
[edit] Acceptance
Where the Curriculum Has Been Adopted:
- Forsyth School District, (1994) Winston-Salem, NC
- Smyth Count Schools, (2000) Chilhowie, VA
- North Marion High School, (Aug 2005) Farmington, WV
- Brady School District, (Aug 2005) Brady, TX
- Ector County Independent School District (Dec 2005) Odessa, TX
- Claiborne Public Schools, (Mar 2006) Claiborne, LA
Where the Curriculum Has Been Rejected:
- Steamboat Springs, CO (Jan 2006)
- Frankenmuth, MI (Jan 2005)
- Grand Prairie, TX (July 2005)
- Kress, TX (July 2005)
- Paradise, CA (Mar 2005)
- Pinellas County, FL (2001)
- Surry, VA (2000)
- Shelby County, TN (2000)
- North Kansas City, MO (July 1999)
- Midland, TX (July 1997)
- Peoria, IL (Aug 1997)
[edit] External links
- The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools
- The plaintiff's complaint in Gibson v. Lee County School Board
- University Religion Departments and Teaching about the Bible in Public High Schools: A Report from Florida by David Levenson, Society of Biblical Literature
- 1999 Opinion of the Attorney General of Georgia, Thurbert Baker, on the legality of the NCBCPS curriculum
- Executive Summary to Dr. Mark Chancey's critique of the NCBCPS curriculum
- List of scholars endorsing Chancey's report
- "The Revised Curriculum of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools" by Dr. Mark Chancey, Southern Methodist University
- "Controversial Bible Curriculum Revised" by Robert Marus, Associated Baptist Press