Thanks to Right-Wing Lobbying, We're Teaching a Generation of Kids to Doubt Science and History

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/thanks-right-wing-lobbying-were-teaching-generation-kids-doubt-science-and-history

When high school students in Scottsdale’s Gilbert Public Schools open their Biology textbooks this year, they may find something missing: an entire page on pregnancy options.

Such was the decision of the Gilbert Public School Board, which voted 3-2 last week to “edit” an Honors Biology textbook to bring it into accordance with a two year old law requiring all education materials in the state to " promot[e] childbirth and adoption over elective abortion." The biology textbook in question isn’t a sex-ed coursebook, and it actually presented a survey of options from abstinence to abortofacients, but lawmakers didn’t seem too bothered by the details: the purpose of Arizona’s textbook law was to create situations just like this one, and the joy at finally being able to implement it was palpable.

"Since the change in this law was relatively recent, we are likely the first school board to proactively ensure that the legislative intent is being enforced," the board’s president said.

The ease with which a school board in Arizona edited student’s biology education, with the blessing of a state legislature, highlights textbooks as one of the most vulnerable battlegrounds of the right wing culture wars. Allergic to controversy, school districts are extraordinarily susceptible to complaints, just a few of which can come to seem like a deluge. School boards members are often elected in dismally low-turnout elections, ceding control to a tiny sliver of the local populace, which places them at the mercy of right wing advocacy groups like the one that pushed the Arizona changes.

[hobbit709]

1. Null-ABC by H. Beam Piper

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18346

[bemildred]

2. Our civilization has obviously run it's course.

All the signs are there. Decadent culture, narcissistic and incompetent elites, failing infrastructure, collapse of the social compact, it's the hinge of history. And the kids know it.

[xchrom]

3. ...

[RKP5637]

4. Yep! Kids aren't as much of an open book to be maligned as many of such AZ ilk would like.

Observation trumps lies and distortions for those willing to look, and IMO kids today are more tuned in.