I will be speaking for parents on Tennessee textbook commission
Laurie Cardoza-moore was selected to serve on the panel by House Speaker Cameron Sexton
Few things are more important than our children’s education, but few parents have any idea what lurks inside their children’s textbooks.
As a Tennessee mother of five, I once waved to my children as they boarded little yellow buses, content in the knowledge that they would receive a wholesome American education. That was until I came across a Williamson County textbook that appeared to justify a Palestinian suicide bombing. From that day on, I have been committed to campaign for curricula that reflect our Tennessee values.
After launching a national media campaign against that quote, it was removed from textbooks in Tennessee. However, that was only the beginning.
I discovered that here in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, our textbooks were working against us. Our children were being spoon-fed a politicized anti-judeo-christian agenda pushed by foreign interest groups – with little to stop them.
One decade later, I work with a professional team of researchers, former teachers, academics and parents that scour through educational content to check their accuracy and bias.
My critics are distorting my legacy
This is why I was proudly selected by House Speaker Cameron Sexton as a Commissioner to the Tennessee State Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission.
I was not selected to represent the teachers’ unions, textbook publishers or other parts of the education establishment. I was selected to represent parents across Tennessee that cherish their children’s futures.
The appointment has drawn the wrath of those who want to maintain the status quo. They are doing their utmost to distort my legacy and rewrite my past.
If they dig deep, they will learn that in addition to my work on textbooks, I have campaigned for women’s and minority rights at the United Nations, where I serve as a Special Envoy for the World Council of Independent Christian Churches, that represents over 44 million Evangelical Christians worldwide. They will learn that I have spearheaded Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, a global Evangelical Christian organization which educates Christians about their Biblical responsibility to stand with Israel and the Jewish people against the rise of global anti-semitism.
That I have co-produced award-winning documentary films that have been viewed by millions of people across the globe. Including the Forgotten People, which tells the painful story of Christianity during the Holocaust and how so many stood idly by as a genocide was being perpetrated in front of them.
I advocate for ‘wholesome’ American education
I am an American patriot raised in an immigrant family of Portuguese Jews that were forced to convert to Christianity during the Inquisition. To this day I proudly use my maiden name; Cardoza, lest I forget my roots. My maiden name itself is a protest against dark times when religious identities were crushed and cancelled to please the masses.
Most importantly, I am a Tennessean mother of five that did everything I have mentioned while home schooling my five children because I couldn’t trust what they were being taught.
I pray for a day, when parents in the Volunteer State can send their children to school with the knowledge that they are receiving a wholesome, accurate and unbiased American education.
Until that day arrives it is imperative that “We The Parents” have a voice.
Laurie Cardoza-moore is president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations.