UC says N-O to BJU Press

Foxnews is reporting that the Association of Christian Schools International is suing the UC system for “discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints.”

“According to the lawsuit, the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta was told its courses were rejected because they use textbooks printed by … Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books.”

I never thought I would ever say this, but: I have become a believer in the potential of BJU press. This past year, the curriculum committee where I teach decided to move away from Apologia’s Exploring Creation with … series to find a set of textbooks that work well in the classroom, are up-to-date scientifically, and aren’t an artistic monstrosity. This was particularly the case for Biology, though we were in search of a Chemistry textbook and replacements for middle school science.

From the beginning, we sadly had to admit that anything published by Christians was very unlikely to be of any worth to students. We sent off for free copies from the standard mainstream publishers: Holt, Prentice Hall, etc… and to satisfy some parents who swore we were selling out, we purchased the new edition of BJU Biology (3rd edition, for those playing at home).

I must say that I was completely knocked off my feet. The design was great. The content was great, and even academic (gasp! I thought this was a Christian publisher!?). The parts of the book that were distinctively Christian were well researched and well written. Topics outside the Christian hot-issues, were also very well done. The illustrations were marvelous. One of our teachers is married to a medical illustrator, and even she was impressed.

In the end, we choose BJU Biology and Prentice Hall for Chemistry. However, the chemistry solution is temporary. When BJU comes out with the next edition of Chemistry (they *just* finished the Biology), we’ll be waiting to make the switch.

5 responses to “UC says N-O to BJU Press

  1. Wow, that’s good to hear because I’ve generally been skeptical of anything BJU and have avoided their materials completely. Guess I should be more “open minded” regarding “Christian” publishers…

  2. Interesting.

    We used BJU in our homeschool for a few years in the beginning. It fit our needs well at that time. We’ve used Math Science and Reading.

    We now lean more towards ABeka…with a few other things mixed in. I have been impressed with their science, health, history, and grammar.

    We are looking to begin latin, any curriculum suggestions?

  3. Good to know, because when I was in school those books sucked…

  4. That’s great to hear, Mike. I’ll pass the news along to my friends who work at BJU Press. :) Their goal is always to produce the highest quality textbooks possible. I’m glad that in a fair comparison the books demonstrate that quality.

  5. “I have become a believer in the potential of BJU press.”

    BJU distance learning reaches over 1 million people a day. That is, they are in direct contact with either one of the distance learning educational programs or with at least some form of printed material from the BJU press. Currently there are efforts to translate their entire curriculum into several foreign languages, many of which are in Asia.

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