A Star Tribune newspaper column has prompted a state investigation into a charter school. A substitute teacher said a school in Inver Grove Heights is blurring the line of separation of church and state. Being a charter school Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, or TIZA, is supported by tax dollars. The teacher told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the presence of religion she observed at the school took her by surprise. TIZA Executive Director Azad Zaman insisted the school follows with state and federal laws. “TIZA does not endorse any religion,” he said. However, TIZA Academy is sponsored by Islamic Relief USA, based in California. The questions came after substitute teacher Amanda Getz taught at TIZA last month and told the Star Tribune about things she observed that day that shocked her. “I’ve been in a lot of schools and I’ve never been in a school where they had washing rituals, or they had prayer, or where they had a room where you had to take your shoes off,” Getz said. “It is most likely that this substitute teacher was sadly mistaken,” said Zaman.
The State Department of Education said they would conduct more site visits and write to the State Department to find out more about the school’s sponsor. TIZA requires all students to learn Arabic as a second language English. State law requires the school to fly an American flag during school hours, however no flag flies outside of TIZA Academy.
Zaman told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS he didn’t know how to work the flagpole.
I can sympathize, flagpoles are tricky, theres that rope thingy and then these clips…its all so confusing. Update from yesterdays story.
They ought to require that they get an Automatic Flag Pole !!! Sen Barry Goldwater used to have one – it had a photo-cell the triggered the raising of the Flag in the AM and the lowering of the Falg in the PM – Automatically !!!
Link:
http://www.baartol.com/automatic-flagpole.html
“While serving as ISB Trustee, Attawia has also served as Director of Islamic Relief USA, an organization of which he is now Chairman. Islamic Relief USA is the American office of Islamic Relief Worldwide, an organization which has been accused by the governments of Russia and Israel of supporting terrorism. While Attawia was Director of Islamic Relief USA it contributed several thousand dollars to the Holy Land Foundation, an organization which has also been designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and which was indicted in 2004 for providing material support for Hamas. Documents indicate that Islamic Relief USA has also provided at least $350,000 to the Muslim American Society, an organization, according to its own public statements, founded in the United States to implement the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/islamic_schools_christian_scho.php
What the F is this supposed to mean: “TIZA requires all students to learn Arabic as a second language English” ? Is this school requiring English as the second language? Or is it Arabic? I’m no journalist nor have a degree in English but is that sentence composed correctly?
Anyway, it’s a religion of peace people. Don’t get into a tizzy over this. Just keep paying your tax dollars to make sure that more and more schools like this one pop up in the US. Oh, and BTW, make sure you send your non-Muslim kids to these schools too. Maybe they’ll learn a new religion and new culture. Besides, Christianity and Judaism is so, so old now and Atheism is so boring…America = Rome 2.0. Will end up the same way too…Sad (although I hope I’m wrong) but true.
#1 – I’m afraid they would end up wearing it on their head.
What I said yesterday.
Yea, I can imagine the Exec Director looking the reporter right in the eyes and saying he didn’t know how to operate a flag pole.
I’ve never understood how people can lie with such ease. No involuntary blush, no fidgiting. Amazing. Saw the same thing with Petrayus the other day in front of Congress. Spewing his bullshit. Too smart a man to believe his own words, but co-opted by the actual kool-aid drinkers he reports to.
Yea, the future is cataract bright.
Flag poles can be tricky.
Do you raise the flag upside down?
Do you set the flag on fire before raising it?
Or wait until the end of the day?
Is it wrong to scream “Death to the great Satan” during the pledge of allegiance?
If you keep your fingers crossed during the pledge, does it still count?
#7. bobbo- I assumed he was displaying his arrogance and thumbing his nose at the reporter, and probably all of US. Why do we put up with these cretins?
I pledge allegiance
to the flag
of the Islamic States of America
and to the theocracy
for which it stands
one world, under Sharia law
with tyranny and oppression for all (especially women)
amen
I was thinking he was so accustomed to hanging people from a flagpole that he couldn’t grasp the idea of just hanging a flag…
#9–McCullough–could be arrogance, but ALWAYS follow the money until convinced it is something else. His funding is based on conformity with law. The law requires the flag pole ceremony. Ignorance with things technical gives you a chance to keep your funding, arrogance a better chance you would lose it.
Follow the money, gravity, people will blame everyone else before looking in the mirror==what other immutable laws are there?
its good to know that Islam is spreading. no matter how much racism, bombs threats and media war us thrown at Islam. it always bounces back much stronger. you can’t hide and push away the truth, Islam my friends is a religion of truth, too bad it gets bad publicity due to ignorance of some of it followers, but Islam as a whole is the only true religion. the new converts to Islam can testify to that.
#13 – too bad it [Islam] gets bad publicity due to ignorance of some of it followers,
The bad publicity is not due to ignorance of its followers, it is due to the atrocities of its followers.
Raise of hands, everybody:
Who honestly thinks Muslims are taking over American anytime soon?
C’mon everybody. Get a grip. Muslims make up a whopping 0.5% of the population and some of you think they’re ready to violently overthrow the country.
FYI, there are plenty of Muslims countries which have a far higher population of Christians and they don’t seem nearly as freaked-out as many Americans. And _WE_ fancy ourselves to be the tolerant ones.
#15. Guess you missed the whole point of the article. Not about violent overthrow of the country. No one here is worried about that except maybe neocon fearmongers. The article is about another religious group scamming the government, get a clue man.
#13. zorkor, well if the article is correct, it appears you have a strange definition of the word truth. Look it up in a dictionary. Your friend in the article is a liar and a theif. How would Mohammad feel about that? More importantly how do YOU feel about that? I guess its OK as long as you lie and steal from infidels, right?
We’re doing our best to catch up and become a “diverse” craphole just like the elitist parts of the coasts that like to call us flyover country.
#10, McCullough;
TFTFY
#10 & #19
Hey Guys – one set of assholes at a time.
#20 – You forgot me! <<<jumping up and down waving
#13
Yeah… peaceful… truth… if you don’t believe me, I’m gonna kill you sucka!
The new islam.. peacefully convert everyone we can… then when we have enough, kill everyone else…
We believe you like we believe the guy who says he can’t work the flagpole… its obviously something in that “holy water” you’ve been drinking…
#19. touche’
#15,
I’m reacting to this conservative paranoia that America is in an existential struggle with Islam… FOR THE VERY FUTURE OF AMERICA against ISLAMO FASCISTS!
It’s all nonsense, of course. Articles like this blog just add to that paranoia.
#24–Greg==an analogy, I know you can handle it.
Take bank robbery. Bank robberies will never destroy America==but should they be allowed?
Thank you for understanding the “right” issue.
#25: bobbo
Poor analogy. Follow it through to its logical conclusion:
Under the current laws, bank robberies will (probably) never destroy America. This is because they are illegal, and those who decide to still go ahead and commit them will face stiff legal penalties. Thus, most people don’t even try, and we all keep our money in banks. This, in turn, allows capitalist civilization to work (more or less).
Legalize bank robberies, and there is no longer any deterrent to rob a bank, aside from the possibility of banks then hiring their own armed security. However, this might not work too well, since they would not only lose money from all the (now legal) robberies, but would lose even further when sued by those very same robbers, for assaulting them during a perfectly legal activity. Alot more people would start to rob banks, and soon nobody would feel secure keeping their money at one.
Note that I think this school should absolutely lose its funding, but I have to ask of you, please don’t try to help if you can’t provide a convincing argument. In other words: the worst enemy is a thoughtless friend. No disrespect intended (I don’t usually find you to be thoughtless, but that post was crap).
#26–Tex–hah, hah. Made me laugh–thanks.
So, my excellent analogy is crap huh? Can you identify what nerve it hit in you? Cant be revulsion to bad argument/analogy, for if that was upsetting, you wouldn’t be here at all?
But friends don’t let friends make bad analogies. You think the analogy fails because Bank Robbing is illegal–but so is any organization that plans the overthrow of the US government–ie, Muslim schools cheating the taxpayers out of money who don’t raise the flag.
But analogies are not meant to be totally explanatory–they are just simple tools to open one door. Every house of mystery has many doors ((see the analogy?????)).
But you criticize the analogy by sticking exactly to the point the analogy made. If you make Bank Robbery legal–then yes, America will fail. If you make religious sects that seek the overflow of America legal (by not enforcing the laws against them), Amerca will fail. I think on the VERY POINT you make, the analogy works just apposite to your posting.
But you intrigue me. EVERY analogy does fail at some point in comparison–otherwise it would be the thing itself and not an analogy.
So, rereading to edit myself, yea, I see the weakness surrounding the concept of initial illegality.
OK–to reach the same point with an analogy that matches more points==These Muslim religions are like baby gorillas. When small, only .5% of their ultimate size, they are not yet born==easy to tolerate, don’t even know they are there. Easy to abort, no one will complain. Let it give birth after a period of gestation, and what you have is a cute little oddity that draws attention by its novelity==like the installation of footbaths or the refusal to taxi people who have had too much to drink. Obnoxious, but still cute. Now, a few years down the road, and you can’t find a single banana in your house, and you really like bananas.
YOu should never criticize an analogy for failing to “prove” any given point. Its purpose is only to widen the perspective so that the proof can be seen.
See, that was much better 🙂
I wasn’t criticizing it for failing to prove the point; you are correct that an analogy cannot be completely the thing it is used to represent. However, I was criticizing your analogy for not being comparable enough to what you were using it as a reply to: Greg’s assertion that Islam is nothing to worry about in and of itself. Or at least that’s how I read your reply. As an analogy for the school in the original article, it is quite appropriate.
Tweak-me summed up the “peaceful” nature of Islam (and Christianity) in his above post.
#28–Tex–you say “not being comparable enough.” You did much more than that, you explained why you thought it wasn’t comparable which is what I value.
But you speak in past tense. Reading my response at #27, how would you evaluate the analogy now?
How long will it be before Minnesota alters its state name to Muslim-sota?
DING, DING, DING, DING, DING.
Warning signs have come and gone. Reality is setting in. Accept it. . . or speak up and get involved in a peaceful manner.