Environmental education is under assault on 2 fronts. First, multinational corporations are designing & distributing environmental curricula that are professionally produced, easy to use, often free, and incredibly biased in favor of industry. Second, some of the most prominent conservative think tanks in America are mounting a well- funded attack on genuine environmental education. Their objective is simple: protect industries that despoil the planet and put the brakes on the emergence of environmental awareness among young people. The spectrum of curricula is breathtaking and its shamelessness is overt. The American Nuclear Society provides "Let's Color and Do Activities with the Atoms Family." Materials I received from Exxon portray the Prince William Sound cleanup as a victory of technology, brushing over the cause of the disaster: the Exxon Valdez. But the most brazen miseducation campaign is carried out by the timber industry.

Big timber spends millions on so-called educational programs (which, of course, they generously donate to public schools). They offer hikes, presentations, and paid workshops for teachers. They distribute books, posters, videos, lesson plans, and other materials. Through the looking glass of big timber, old-growth forests become biological problems that require clear-cutting in order to survive. Logging companies are not cutting the forests, the propaganda explains, it is "managing" them, acting as their stewards, even saviors. Truax, spun from Dr. Suess' conservationist classic The Lorax, is one of the "educational" materials distributed to schools produced by the Hardwood Forest Foundation and the National Oak Flooring Manuf. Assoc. The colorful book, written and illustrated in the Suess style, chronicles Truax, a calm and thoughtful logger, who tries to explain the "facts" of forest management to the psychotic treehugger Guardbark.

In Philomath, Oregon, where I teach science, Starker Forests offers a guided hike in a small section of their forest, an outing that resonates strongly with the kids, and can shrewdly confuse the most earnest educator. Classes are instructed to play a game in which the largest child in the group pretends to be the big tree. The other children stand closely to the big tree and crowd it. The company guide asks them to choose three words that describe how they, the little trees, feel when you are crowded together under the big tree. Then all the little trees scatter out, providing more space. The purpose of the exercise is to help them visualize the benefits of thinning the forest. (For full realism, perhaps some of the children should be asked to visualize the feeling of being chopped down and processed into end tables.)

Often, the very organizations that preach the gospel of environmental education are actually industry shills. They have earthy names but clandestine roots. The American Forest Foundation (AFF) has a list of co-sponsors, cooperators, and partners that includes some of the most egregious despoilers of our forests: Sierra Pacific Industries, champion of clear-cuts in California; The Pacific Lumber Company, loggers of the redwoods; MacMillan Bloedel Packaging; Willamette Industries; Boise Cascade Corporation. One AFF project, Project Learning Tree, which works to promote logging and industrial management of our nation's forest, has reached more than 500,000 teachers and some 25 million students from prekindergarten to 12th grade.

Surreptitious public relations campaigns and deceptive advertising are battling today for the hearts and minds of our children. And they're winning. The North America Association of Environmental Education (the largest environmental education group in the world) has endorsed Project Learning Tree. Parents and citizens in general must assume the role of frontline warriors if environmental education is to remain meaningful. They must demand that any curricula provided by corporate sources be reviewed, just as textbooks are reviewed prior to being adopted. They must challenge their local boards of education to keep schools free of corporate propaganda. They must study the materials children receive at school. Corporate PR campaigns in classrooms are reminiscent of tobacco companies' secretive strategy of peddling cigarettes to teens. Their effort must be brought into the full light of day.

Immigrant education issues - mas raza Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of LA CHIRLA part of Calif. Immigrant Welfare Collaborative 213.353.1333 Summary of Immigration News CCIR Action Alert US & World News 5.28.99 Trustees Seek to Bill Mexico for School Costs School board considers billing Mexico millions for educating illegal immigrants YES! on Prop 226 CABE California Association for Bilingual Education BajaRat UnzWatch - CA Prop227 economic impact Latinos students, SAT tests, & UC admissions demographics & economic facts - Cato Inst./NIF USC Library bibliography Voice of Citizens Together anti-immigration monitors. Capitulation in California video ACRU H. Garber OC eugenicist candidate for 46th Dist.

Anaheim Backs Away From Immigration Issue City Council Defers To Federal Govt 1.24.01   Paul J. Young Channel 2000 ANAHEIM   The Anaheim City Council has decided to hold off on voting for or against a measure that would've given its local police officers the authority to round up illegal immigrants. The Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform submitted a proposal to the council earlier this month advocating the implementation of just such a policy. More than 1,000 members of the community signed in support of the measure, which provoked anger among immigrants' rights groups. "This is purely, purely an anti-immigration move that is meant to target people who look different than what some people think an American should look like," Zeke Hernandez told the LATimes this week. The president of the Santa Ana chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens was among a host of activists urging Anaheim lawmakers to table or vote down the measure. Under its provisions, Anaheim police officers would take on the task of arresting any suspected illegal immigrants unable to provide proof of residency. Immigration reform advocates say that local police departments have to do more to stem the tide of illegals entering the country. Anaheim policeman Harold Martin is responsible for coming up with the idea of Anaheim police officers taking the place of Immigration and Naturalization Service agents wherever and whenever necessary. Martin turned to a 1996 federal law that states local law enforcement agencies can, in effect, perform the same duties as the INS, with the permission of the U.S. Atty General. Salt Lake City was the last to try, but it scuttled the plan amid fierce protests by groups that favor an open border between the U.S. and Mexico. Barbara Coe, who chairs the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, decided to introduce the idea in Anaheim, where the local high school Board of Trustees voted in 1999 to bill foreign countries for the expense of teaching undocumented immigrant schoolchildren. The Justice Dept overruled the board, saying that it didn't have the authority to involve itself in what was ostensibly a federal issue.

But immigration reform activists say that they're tired of what they perceive as federal inaction on the issue of stanching the influx of "illegal aliens." "We are quite tired of American citizens being injured and killed by illegal aliens, and it is time to put a stop to it," Coe told the Times. She added that neither she, nor her supporters, is interested in deporting illegals only from South of the Border. "If they can't provide documentation that they are here legally, then they are subject to arrest … We don't care if you are pink or blue; all we care about is the illegality," Coe said. Immigration reformers say that the situation is desperate and that a city like Anaheim could set a precedent for the rest of the nation to follow. The debate over the best course of action raged in Anaheim City Council chambers Tuesday night, where the mayor and council members listened to both sides of the issue. "I hope that you don't even consider this measure," Garden Grove resident Dietrich Nicholson told the council. "It's immigrant-bashing. It's racism from the word go." Gesturing to the 11 speakers on hand to appeal for the council to accept the proposal, Nicholson said, "If you look behind me, the word 'senior citizen skinheads' comes to mind. That's what we're dealing with here."
Nicholson's comments raised the ire of Dr. Howard Garber, a 40-year resident of Anaheim who said that individuals trying to paint immigration reformers as racists are relying on nothing less than smear tactics to damage a good cause. "We're tired of the defamation, we're tired of the intimidation," Garber told the council. "We're talking about national law, and our resolution merely favors implementing it. "I want to say that, whether it is a federal statute or local [Dr. Howard Garber turns to address those accusing him & his colleagues of being 'racist'] ordinance, obedience to the law cannot be and should not be selective .... We're trying to do a good job for California and the country."
At the conclusion of Tuesday night's public hearing, the Anaheim City Council announced that it would not place the reformers' initiative on the agenda for a vote, effectively tabling it. According to the Orange County News Channel, council members appeared to agree that, on its face, the idea was akin to racial profiling, and that immigration-related issues were the province of the federal government. But councilman Frank Feldhaus said later that the council's decision did not mean that the city was closing its doors to other proposals on immigration reform.

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