ABSTRACT
As a society, the United States faces important questions today about the aims of education. Multicultural education has traditionally conceived the school as a melting pot or salad bowl, where diverse individuals come together. Yet increasingly, public schools as individual entities are becoming demographically homogeneous (Kozal 2006). The moral role of public education remains suspect, as religious parents fear the moral influence of secular teachers on their children, while secularist parents challenge historically common religious features of schools. Standardization of curriculum nationwide is becoming a popular goal (Common Core 2012), as the United States looks to evaluate schools competitively to make funding decisions, and compete with other countries worldwide. From this perspective, sound education in public schools about Islam and Muslims may not be the most crucial issue the society faces with regard to the educational system. As charter schools, privatization, and other choice models are increasing in popularity today, saving the public educational system, with its multicultural civic aims, may seem prerequisite to any component of teaching within it!
