Political Correctness Takes a Hit in Kentucky Schools
by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
June 15, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A conservative advocacy group is praising the Kentucky state school board for refusing to add the secular terms "Common Era" and "Before the Common Era" to school curriculum. The board has voted 10-0 to continue using the designations "B.C." and "A.D." to mark historical dates in textbooks and tests. The unanimous vote overturns an April decision in which the board proposed changing the acronyms to "C.E." and "B.C.E." Since that decision was made, however, six new members have been appointed to the 11-member board by Governor Ernie Fletcher. A spokeswoman for the governor, who is an ordained Baptist minister, says Fletcher did not tell them how to vote on the matter.
But Associated Press notes that the April decision had drawn criticism from some ministers and religious groups who complained that it was an attempt to sterilize a reference to Christ. Richard Nelson with the Family Foundation of Kentucky says the board was responding to that criticism.
"The average Kentuckian felt that this was just another attempt to impose political correctness on our school children here in Kentucky schools -- and so there was an outcry," says Nelson. A spokesperson with the state Department of Education, he shares, indicated that office had received about 900 pieces of written testimony on the proposal, "most of it which was against the proposed change," he adds.
Martin Cothran, senior policy analyst with the Foundation, describes the board's turnaround as perhaps the "shot heard 'round the world in the battle against political correctness" in schools. He says those same Kentuckians who wrote to the Department of Education expressing their views were demonstrating they are "tired of seeing schools give in to every politically correct trend that comes down the pike."
Nelson notes an irony in one aspect of the debate. He accuses those who favor a change in the dating system of conducting a "sham" because they still use the birth of Christ as a reference point.
"I think it's disingenuous for these politically correct folks who want to impose this upon us [to be] saying [they] want to be neutral," he states. "Well, they're still using that central dating point in history, which is 2,006 years ago is when we recognize Christ was born -- they still want to use that but change the terminology."
Respectively, the designations "B.C." and "A.D." stand for "before Christ" and "Anno Domini" -- Latin for "in the year of the Lord." The terms "Common Era" and "Before the Common Era" are still being used in some Kentucky colleges and universities and on college entrance exams.
