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This Week’s
no wonder public education in the state is in the state it’s in — which is nothing short of embarrassing. Uncertified teachers, many of whom are recruited from foreign countries, are employed to compensate for the shortage of qualified educators. Most students’ reading and math scores are abysmally below the national average. And now comes startling news that New York State Regents English exams, which is requisite for graduation, are censored so as not to offend anyone. In order to achieve that daunting goal several acclaimed literary works, which are excerpted on statewide tests, are being abridged to eliminate "insensitive" references to, among other things, race, religion, ethnicity, sex, nudity, alcohol, and strong and mild profanity. Basically any words or phrases that may offend someone for some reason. The chestnut for censorship, Banned in Boston, can now suitably be changed to Banned in New York! Jeez, you’d think they were citing articles from Playboy and Penthouse! But, no. New York’s Department of Education has cut and altered phrases from such noted writers as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Anton Chekov and Annie Dillard, and revised portions of a speech by the United Nations Secretary General that includes references to what the U.S. owes to the U.N. and mentions of wine and drinking. Words like "fat" became "heavy" and "skinny" became "thin." The phrase "fine California wine and seafood" was changed to "fine California seafood." "Most Jewish women" was altered to read "most women," which even out of context obviously changes its significance. A passage from a Chekov story was removed in its entirety because a female character searching for a missing piece of jewelry strip-searches members of the household’s staff. Oooh, how racy! Not to mention deplorable and insulting to the writers whose works are being dissected and disgraced. A New York State Education Department representative responded to the initial report that appeared in Sunday’s New York Times, saying it was the Board of Regents’ "obligation to remove language that could make students uncomfortable." He noted that the state was adhering to decades old "sensitivity review guidelines" that assure students won’t feel "ill at ease" while taking the test. Hell, the sole anxiety I ever experienced whenever taking an exam was the damn test! The Times mocked the educators by spoofing the title of Ernest Hemingway’s literary classic, changing "The Old Man and the Sea" to "The Elderly Man and the Sea." On Tuesday, following two days of sharp criticism from the ACLU, which called the policy "political correctness run amok," educators, authors and several groups opposed to literary censorship, State Education Commissioner Richard Mills reversed the guidelines stating that English Regents exams will no longer be altered to delete potentially offensive words and phrases. What’s so baffling about this brouhaha is that it could easily have been avoided if the state’s Regents simply selected passages devoid of possibly offensive references. There are undoubtedly hundreds of classic and contemporary works that don’t contain what may be deemed politically incorrect references. But that would require state educators, who apparently have things other than serious educational matters to worry about, to spend significantly more time poring over literary works to find acceptable excerpts. Then again, these self-appointed censors can save themselves a great deal of time by simply choosing Reader’s Digest condensed versions. Better yet, they should just scrutinize those popular abridged student references of classic literature - CLIFF NOTES! Not only does doctoring and sanitizing a work for the sake of a test humiliate the author, but it is insulting to imagine that students headed for college and on the verge of adulthood cannot cope with words and terms that they should already understand may be inappropriate and insensitive in certain situations.
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