Education Department removes Mao Zedong quote from website for kids

Chris Moody
·Political Reporter

A U.S. Department of Education website for children posted a quote on Friday from Mao Zedong, the late leader of the Communist Party of China, but removed it after reporters shared the link to the website on Twitter.

Nation Magazine writer Lee Fang called attention to the National Center for Education Statistics' Kids' Zone Homepage, which listed a quote from Mao under its "Quote of the Day" feature. "Our attitude towards ourselves should be 'to be satiable in learning' and towards others 'to be tireless in teaching,'" the page read.

Mao, commonly called Chairman Mao, led China's Communist government from 1949 until his death in 1976. His policies, including forced labor, are blamed for the deaths of tens of millions of people.

The Education Department website, a portal for children to access learning tools and play educational games, provides daily inspirational quotes, historical facts and vocabulary words. Within a few hours after Fang posted a link to the site, the quote was scrubbed and eventually replaced with a quote from Abraham Lincoln.

But initially, the Mao quote was replaced with this: