http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/us/politics/11texas.htmlAUSTIN, Tex. — Even as a panel of educators laid out a vision Wednesday for national standards for public schools, the Texas school board was going in a different direction, holding hearings on changes to its social studies curriculum that would portray conservatives in a more positive light, emphasize the role of Christianity in American history and include Republican political philosophies in textbooks.
The hearings are the latest round in a long-running cultural battle on the 15-member State Board of Education, a battle that could have profound consequences for the rest of the country, since Texas is one of the largest buyers of textbooks.
Hmm. How would Texans like our children to view U.S. history?
...one guideline requires publishers to include a section on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”
There have also been efforts among conservatives on the board to tweak the history of the civil rights movement. One amendment states that the movement created “unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes” among minorities. Another proposed change removes any reference to race, sex or religion in talking about how different groups have contributed to the national identity.
OK, "unrealistic expectations"? Maybe the Texas School Board should mail a draft copy for the current President of the US to read. And removing references to race/sex/religion is just evasive denial, seriously. The Board just had no other choice if they wanted to change history! :P
The amendments are also intended to emphasize the unalloyed superiority of the “free-enterprise system” over others and the desirability of limited government.
One says publishers should “describe the effects of increasing government regulation and taxation on economic development and business planning.”
Well, I wonder how the Board will explain the Great Depression and the 2008 Wall Street crisis.
Throughout the standards, the conservatives have pushed to drop references to American “imperialism,” preferring to call it expansionism. “Country and western music” has been added to the list of cultural movements to be studied.
OK, country & western music is an important part of American culture, I understand that. (But will punk rock and hip hop fans be forced to listen to Taylor Swift as a class assignment?) But c'mon, using "expansionism" instead of "imperialism"? Sure, it was really noble to expand American power by: backing violent right-wing regimes in Central America, invading Iraq based on faulty intelligence, and dropping an atomic bomb on Japan!
References to Ralph Nader and Ross Perot are proposed to be removed, while Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, is to be listed as a role model for effective leadership, and the ideas in Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address are to be laid side by side with Abraham Lincoln’s speeches.
Confederacy was great? And Nader and Perot are irrelevant despite getting a significant minority of votes when they ran for president?
Early in the hearing on Wednesday, Mr. McLeroy and other conservatives on the board made it clear they would offer still more planks to highlight what they see as the Christian roots of the Constitution and other founding documents.
“To deny the Judeo-Christian values of our founding fathers is just a lie to our kids,” said Ken Mercer, a San Antonio Republican.
YAWWNNNN...the same tired old argument that America was founded on a Christian heritage.
The current Secretary of Education plans on demolishing public schools. And in some states, public schools implode because of intellectually incompetent boards. Does Duncan Donuts even twitch a bit when he reads this?
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