In Bangladesh, after 10,000 students were expelled from a nationwide test that was administered to 500,000 students, thousands went on a rampage, stoning teachers, setting examination rooms on fire, and assaulting proctors. Students were taking the Higher Secondary Certificate examination, which would allow them to become teachers themselves, and protesters formally called on government examiners to recognize their cheating on the test as a fundamental student right.

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In a May 19 press release, with plenty of time to think the matter through, Barry W. Lynn—a Methodist pastor who heads Americans United for the Separation of Church and State—explained the April 20 killings in Colorado thus: "Evidence indicates that the two students who killed their peers, and ultimately themselves at Columbine High felt alienated and ostracized. We know from experience that school-sponsored religious displays and worship inevitably make some students feel like second-class citizens."

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From "Tonweya and the Eagles" by Rosebud Yellow Rose, part of the 1996 Houghton Mifflin grade 6 reader:

Tahcawin had packed the parfleche cases with clothing and food and strapped them to a travois made of two trailing poles with a skin net stretched between them. Another travois lay on the ground ready for the new tipi.

Chano was very happy when Tasinagi suggested the three of them ride up to their favorite hills for the last time.

As the three of them rode along, Tasinagi called Chano's attention to the two large birds circling overhead. They were Wangbli, the eagle. Chano knew they were sacred to his people and that they must never be killed.

He looked at the eagle feather in his father's hair, a sign of bravery, and wondered why it was that the Lakotas as well as many other Indians held Wangbli, the eagle, in such great respect. Someday he would ask his father about this.

[Ed.: The 'ng' in 'Wangbli' is actually a single character, resembling an 'n' with a cedilla-like descender, whose entity cannot be reproduced on standard Web browsers.]

From Have a Happy. . . by Mildred Pitts Walter, in the 1993 Houghton Mifflin grade 4 reader:

In the wee hours of the morning, the family made a circle around Grandma Ida, Beth, and Chris. Grandma Ida gave the tamshi la tutaonana: "In this new year let us continue to practice umoja, kujichagulia, umija, ujamaa, nia, kuumba, and imani. Let us strive to do something that will last as long as the earth turns and water flows."

"Now," Uncle Ronald said, "let's leave this house with the word harambee. In Swahili that means pulling together."

"Harambee!" they all shouted. They repeated it seven times, with Chris's voice the loudest of them all.

From "Yagua Days" by Cruz Martel, 1995 Scott Foresman grade 4 reader:

The whole family sat under wide trees and ate arroz con gandules, pernil, viandas and tostones, ensaladas de chayotes y tomates, and pasteles.

Adan talked and sang until his voice turned to a squeak. He ate until his stomach almost popped a pants button.

Afterwards he fell asleep under a big mosquito net before the sun had even gone down behind the mountains.

In the morning Uncle Ulise called out, "Adan, everyone ate all the food in the house. Let's get more."

"From a bodega?"

"No, mi amor. From my finca on the mountain."

In her survey of basal readers, Losing Our Language, Harvard educator Sandra Stotsky notes that an edited version of the original text, above, appeared in an earlier 1979 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich grade 4 reader:

The whole family sat under wide trees and ate. Adan talked and sang until his voice turned to a squeak. He ate until his stomach almost popped a pants button.

Afterwards he fell asleep under a big mosquito net before the sun had even gone down behind the mountains.

In the morning Uncle Ulise called out, "Adan, everyone ate all the food in the house. Let's get more."

"From a store?"

"No. From my plantation on the mountain."

Stotsky contrasts the overall quality of these contemporary selections with that of Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, a book widely taught to third- and fourth-graders at the end of the 19th century:

Captain had been broken in and trained for an army horse; his first owner was an officer of cavalry going out to the Crimean War. He said he quite enjoyed the training with all the other horses, trotting together, turning together to the right hand or the left, halting at the word of command, or dashing forward at full speed at the sound of the trumpet or signal of the officer.

He was, when young, a dark, dappled, iron gray, and considered very handsome. His master, a young, high-spirited gentleman, was very fond of him, and treated him from the first with the greatest care and kindness.

He told me he thought the life of an army horse was very pleasant; but when it came to being sent abroad over the sea in a great ship he almost changed his mind.

"That part of it," said he, "was dreadful! Of course we could not walk off the land into the ship' so they were obliged to put strong straps under our bodies, and then we were lifted off our legs, in spite of our struggles, and were swung through the air over the water to the deck of the great vessel.

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