Texas ready for textbook showdown

[sabra]

Source: MSNBC

Board to vote on curriculum changes some call ‘backward’

AUSTIN, Texas - Is Texas on the verge of rewriting history, or just correcting it?

The answer depends on whom you listen to on the state’s Board of Education, which is poised to vote this week on new social-studies curriculum standards that could significantly shape what Texas children — and perhaps those outside the nation's second-largest state — are taught in the classroom.

Social conservatives on the 15-member Republican-dominated board are optimistic they will be able to push through curriculum changes that, according to board member and conservative Texas lawyer Cynthia Noland Dunbar, “promote patriotism.”

Among the recommendations facing a final vote: adding language saying the country's Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and including positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the GOP’s Contract with America.

Other amendments to the state's curriculum standards for kindergarten through 12th grade would minimize Thomas Jefferson's role in world and U.S. history because he advocated the separation of church and state; require that students learn about "the unintended consequences" of affirmative action; assert that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society; and rename the slave trade to the "Atlantic triangular trade.”

"The standards are looking real good now. We've made some significant improvements, and I am proud of what the board has done," board member Don McLeroy, author of many of the changes backed by social conservatives, told the Dallas Morning News.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37220562/ns/us_news-life/

[Skink]

1. something like the contract with America is history.

we can't deny things. Like for instance skipping over Darwin.

[pinboy3niner]

2. Skipping over who?

That's a name you won't find in their indices, if they get their way. I think they'll just "disappear" him. That will free up more space for depictions of cavemen hunting dinosaurs.:(

[Skink]

3. I liked the Flintstones.

[pinboy3niner]

6. Yabba dabba doo LOL!

The difference is that WE know it's only a cartoon . . .

[hay rick]

9. Hunting dinosaurs...with guns.

God created men and dinosaurs and gave men the right to own guns. Does anybody really think that men had to wait for guns to be invented before God gave them the right to own them?

[SoapBox]

14. I think it was actually, "The Contract ON America".

*snark*

[SharonAnn]

19. And the GOP failed at nearly all of it, if I recall. Why would thay want that remembered?

[roguevalley]

26. write the history and eliminate language and you win. texas wants

to export the stupid.

[ixion]

4. They are neither "rewriting" history nor correcting it

they are simply being stupid, and everyone outside their fetid Circle of Ignorance knows it.

[paparush]

5. Embracing Denial - A slow, painfu,l death spiral.

[SkyDaddy7]

7. "Atlantic triangular trade.” WTF!?!?!

If the Bible & Jesus were ok with slavery I wonder why the Texas School Board seems so intent on hiding the fact we had a Slave Trade? I mean they are claiming to be the defenders of Christian Morals & Values, right? So what are they worried about?

[Igel]

20. Don't care about the name.

In the '70s we learned about the "slave" trade as half of the trading system. The other half involved the ships all returning, laden with rum and sugar and raw materials, to Europe. Learning about the slave trade would have led to the opinion that it was something personal; it was rather more disturbing, if you think about it, to understand that they were just transporting "stuff."

It was only decades later I learned that the "slave trade" had gone on for a long time before the "New World" was discovered. It was after that I understand that the slave trade to North America was far less than half of it.

[daleo]

25. It's just sugar coating the language

It's a euphemism, meant to cover up the term slavery. It implies that capturing people and forcing them into servitude, and sometimes murdering and raping them, is just "trade".

It's a despicable misuse of language, like implying that the Holocaust was a war between Nazis and Jews.

[nyc 4 Biden]

8. vergonia. eom

[hay rick]

10. What kind of religion needs to put lipstick on the slave trade

and stresses the "unintended consequences" of affirmative action?

I didn't know that racism was a religious sect. My bad.

[AlbertCat]

11. I didn't know that racism was a religious sect.

Dividing people into "Us" and "Them" is essential for RELIGION. Period.

So is ignorance. Essential!

[mbperrin]

13. Southern Baptist Convention was formed because other Baptists

disapproved of slavery.

Yes, racism is a religion.

[SILVER__FOX52]

12. Do they still marry their brothers and sisters in Texas?

It appears so.  How else can you explain this brain dead,
bullshit.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

15. I guess the old slogan was right.

Everything in Texas is bigger.

It's just too bad that it includes the amount of damage that a few overly conservative bible thumpers can inflict on the educational system.

Their attitude reminds me of the "Weird" Al Yankovic spoof of "1999" in "Amish Paradise".

"Then tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699"

They're trying to turn back an imaginary clock since they can't have their way if the facts are actually taught. These so called educators ignore truth and actual history in order to further their own agenda.

[kiranon]

16. Textbook companies need to say "No" to these ignorant and

historically inaccurate changes. Other states who buy these textbooks need to also say "No" we won't buy the books if these changes are in it. There is more than one textbook company and maybe it's time to move textbook purchases to another provider.

[rasputin1952]

17. The Good people of TX should rise up and remove these clowns...

How a bunch of uneducated morons got in such a position is beyond the pale in the first place.

The perpetuation of blind ignorance...these people think they should be "proud" of this?

If TX wants pride, they should march these idiots into the street, tar and feather them and make them watch Planet Earth or anything on National Geographic.

Someone wore out the Stupid Stick when they beat these cretins with it...:grr:

[Posteritatis]

21. The good people of Texas put them there in the first place.

The good people of the various other states, however, should start thinking of bans on Texan schoolbooks in their own schools, like California is apparently considering.

[rasputin1952]

22. The BAD people of TX put them there....

The GOOD one's didn't get out and vote...;)

[Posteritatis]

23. For something like this, doesn't that also make them bad? (nt)

[rasputin1952]

24. I'd consider them "bad"...

but one of the great ironies of the US is that has been called the "greatest Democracy", and yet our voter turnout is consistently in the 50% and lower range...there's plenty of "bad" to go around,,,:hi:

[Archae]

27. They DID vote them out.

Including that McLeroy assclown. He lost the primary, so he's a lame duck until his term runs out.

[Jefferson23]

18. The Texas State Board of Education, A Case of Abuse of Power:

Editor Frank Knaack, Legal Advocacy Coordinator, ACLU of Texas


Executive summary

The Texas State Board of Education, the body charged with determining Texas public school curriculum standards for Texas’ 4.7 million public school children, is scheduled to vote on the adoption of new Social Studies curriculum standards on May 21, 2010.

If the current proposal is adopted, Texas’ schoolchildren will soon be subjected to an
unbalanced and ideologically driven curriculum that risks leaving them unprepared for basic
college level work. In addition, this curriculum may also negatively impact Texas’ already poor high school graduation rate, as the proposed curriculum’s narrow viewpoint is unlikely to engage those Texas public school students most at risk of dropping out.


The Board has a long track-record of abusing the discretion and power granted to it by the Texas Legislature and the people.

From approving a health textbook that provides medically inaccurate information, to injecting religion into public school science classes, to ignoring their statutorily mandated duties, the Board has repeatedly shown that it places personal priorities above the needs of Texas'school
children.

Unfortunately, the Board’s actions have gone from bad to worse.

The Board’s long-running ability to engage in these actions stems from the almost complete power over the creation of academic
requirements and materials granted to it by the Texas Legislature. While the Board’s existence is mandated by the Texas Constitution, the
Legislature retains control over establishing the duties, if any, of the Board in all areas except for control over aspects of the Permanent School Fund and textbook funding issues. Under the Texas Education Code, the Board is charged with “identifying the essential knowledge and skills of each subject of the required curriculum that all students should be able to demonstrate and that will be used in evaluating textbooks … and addressed on the assessment instruments … .”

When granting the Board this power, the
Legislature was clear that it intended the Board to craft the required curriculum, textbooks, and assessment instruments in a way that would “prepare and enable all students to continue to learn in postsecondary educational, training, or employment settings.”

However, the Legislature provided minimal statutory guidance or oversight to govern the Board’s work. With a few minor exceptions, the Legislature left the substantive development and adoption of the curriculum solely in the hands of the Board. The Legislature’s failure to limit the Board’s power has enabled an ongoing abuse of process and power.
The proposed revisions to the Social Studies curriculum represent the most systemic abuse of discretion to date. By relying on unqualified “experts” and abusing its amendment power, the Board has manipulated the Social Studies represent the most systemic abuse of discretion to date.



By relying on unqualified “experts” and abusing its amendment power, the Board has manipulated the Social Studies curriculum to endorse a single historical narrative and a specific, limited philosophy toward the role of government in protecting constitutional rights and civil
liberties that coincides with the ideological outlook of some of its members.


If adopted, this curriculum will allow a governmental entity to transform its subjective views into objective facts.

As a result, students will be taught a one-sided history that will negatively impact their ability to engage and develop their analytical skills.
Almost 4 in 10 Texas public school students fail to graduate from high school, and this curriculum may exacerbate Texas’ dropout problem by failing to engage students. Texas can’t afford to allow the Board to continue its abuses.

http://www.aclutx.org/files/051310ACLUofTexasSBOEReport.pdf