The New York State Education Department has apologized for including a political cartoon on its global studies Regents exam that drew widespread outrage, the NY Post reports.
The cartoon depicts three fat, armed Israeli soldiers using an overturned table as a shield, with one saying, “I knew this peace table would come in handy someday.”
Students who took the test administered on Jan. 24 were asked, “What is the main idea of the cartoon?”
A state Education Department spokesman initially defended the use of the cartoon when The Post broke the story about the complaints on Jan. 31.
But education officials changed their tune after the American Jewish Congress started an online petition that drew more than 1,300 signatures.
The AJC petition condemned the cartoon as “blatantly anti-Israel, disparaging of Israeli soldiers … and is entirely inappropriate to include on a test administered to young minds.”
The petition, sent to Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa as well as the education agency, demanded an apology.
After seeing the petition, AJC reported that a top Education Department official called the group to discuss the complaint.
The department, according to AJC president Jack Rosen, then issued the following statement:
“We regret this test question was included in the Regents exam and apologize to those who were offended by it. We are reviewing our internal procedures to vet all questions to ensure inappropriate questions are not included on future exams.”
“Political cartoons contained on Regents exams are sometimes very pointed and thought-provoking but they are never intended to represent the point of view of the Board of Regents or the Education Department on a given issue.”
I believe it’s number 3
What is the correct answer?
Whether it does or doesn’t represent the view of the Board of Ed, it ‘will’ produce a negative effect! If you’re going to be careful of the opposing opinion you should be equally considerate of this side also.