Exposed: Kid Pan Alley now takes responsibility for “Occupy” song at public school
Public skepticism has been validated in the case of a Virginia public school promoting a children’s song infused with marxist “Occupy Wall Street” language.
American Vision news previously reported on the pro-Occupy song with clearly marxist lyrics. At the time, the school district and “Kid Pan Alley”—the organization hired to direct the children in the song writing process—weakly defended an image of innocence suggesting the children had come up with the lyrics on their own:
“Our sole mission has been and continues to be to inspire and empower children to work together to become creators of their own music and to rekindle creativity as a core value in education.”
The Blaze reports, “The director of a children’s music program has admitted to steering a third grade class toward singing Occupy Wall Street-themed lyrics during a songwriting session at a Virginia elementary school.”
At the time, the Albemarle County school district said the children chose the lyrics entirely on their own and denied they were encouraged to sing anything related to the Occupy movement. . . .
That changed this week, when the founder and director of Kid Pan Alley, Paul Reisler, took responsibility for the lyrics and said he should have avoided certain phrases to keep the song neutral. . . .
“It was my personal mistake to introduce these phrases and I take complete responsibility for it. I will not make a mistake like this again.”
Now the school board is pretending that their hands were clean the whole time:
School Board member Barbara Massie Mouly told CBS19 on Monday she’s pleased with the change of course.
“I am gratified that Mr. Reisler did indicate that he regrets using the controversial language with a young group of people,” she said. “I think we should examine how outside groups are told what our teaching policy is and make sure they are conforming to our policy of showing both sides of any controversial matter.”
And was it school board “policy” before when “school officials stood by the lyrics and Kid Pan Alley” and “said the group doesn’t shape what kids write, and argued that the lyrical content was original”? Just asking.