Texas School Board Drops Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightment from Social Studies Curriculum

[Emit]

As we speak, from liveblogging of the debate:

Texas Drops Thomas Jefferson

Submitted by Kyle on March 11, 2010 - 11:30am

The right-wing members of the Texas School Board have made no secret of the fact that their mission in drafting the new social studies curriculum standards for state public school has been to highlight the supposedly Christian foundation of our nation and the deeply Christian views of the Founding Fathers.

Apparently, the views and writing of the man who drafted the Declaration of Independence do not adequately serve that purpose, which is why both Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightment have now been dropped, as the Texas Freedom Network, which is liveblogging the debate, reports:

9:30 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas (replacing with “the writings of”) and to Thomas Jefferson. She adds Thomas Aquinas and others. Jefferson’s ideas, she argues, were based on other political philosophers listed in the standards. We don’t buy her argument at all. Board member Bob Craig of Lubbock points out that the curriculum writers clearly wanted to students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson. Could Dunbar’s problem be that Jefferson was a Deist? The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards.

9:40 – We’re just picking ourselves up off the floor. The board’s far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America’s exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America’s Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today.

~snip~

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/texas-drops-thomas-jefferson

On edit, Ralph Reed wasn't kidding:

I would rather have a thousand school board members than one president and no school board members. I'd rather have people affecting lives at the local level and changing America one neighborhood and one city and one state at a time than trying to make one person and one office the full repository of all of our hopes and aspirations for a better America. ~
Ralph Reed, head of the Christian Coalition, speaking with David Gergen about his new book Active Faith and how the "Religious Right" politic of morality has filled the space once occupied by the '60's Left, JUNE 6, 1996

[HopeHoops]

1. Big deal. They all know Ronald Reagan wrote the Constitution.

Actually, if you compress the real history of the universe into the 6,000 years they believe in, the Constitution was written in a tiny fraction of a second before I click the "Post message" button. Reagan's current condition wouldn't change their belief anyway.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. If they're dropping Jefferson, whom are they going to credit for writing The Declaration of

Independence, who's on the nickel, etc.?

[Bozita]

3. I think it was Moses. He found it in a burning bush.

That's what some folks are saying.

[LeftishBrit]

34. They probably actually think it was the burning bush, not Moses.

After all, they probably think that everything worthwhile was due to a Bush.

[Emit]

21. Apparently, according to the liveblogger, found in the discussion comments

at the link in the OP:

"Jefferson remains in the U.S. history standards. But he was removed from a standard in world history that had students study the influence of major political philosophers on political revolutions from the 1700s forward. Removing Jefferson from such a list is appalling and a clear demonstration that these board members don’t know what they’re talking about."

[sinkingfeeling]

4. How long before universities around the world stop admitting students with diplomas from Texas?

[Froward69]

11. pretty damn soon

I would hope.

[roguevalley]

18. It will be no joke. There are regional accreditation organizations

that control the level of stupid in schools. I have a feeling Texas is going to be cut loose and then it will be like they don't have schools. Good luck getting a Texas diploma into another state's college.

[MadHound]

5. Well, they can publish textbooks that reflect these decisions,

School districts around the country can buy these textbooks. But the fact of the matter is that social studies teachers, like myself, don't have to use those books. In fact, and I believe that this is true in most states, the GLE's of the state where I teach emphasize the use of primary documents. Guess I'll just have to ditch the Texas textbooks and start teaching directly from the writings of folks like Jefferson, Madison, Dickinson, throw in some Voltaire, the Cato letters, etc.

Screw Texas and it's ignorant, narrow minded school board.

[Robbie88]

6. Nothing really shocks me with these people anymore...

n/t

[Echo In Light]

7. No state does creepy like Tx

[NoGOPZone]

8. No Jefferson? Why do they hate America? nt

[Xenotime]

9. Wasn't Thomas Jefferson a gun nut?

[democracy1st]

10. K & R

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dmr]

13. Aw, geezzz

I was just talking to my son last week about how the religious right doesn't want people to be enlightened. I wondered aloud about what they would think of our founding fathers being enlightened, and thinking outside the box. That if it weren't for that thinking, this country would have no Constitution, and the world would've been totally different.

How they hated the Baby Boomers and their free-thinking and questioning the powers that may be. Whatever were they teaching us in schools had to be stopped.

Look where the right has brought us?

We have stagnated, and we are crumbling.

It's dismal to think about it.

<sigh>

[librechik]

14. I'm sure they would like to stomp the very idea of the Enlightenment out of existence

ignorance and piety are all a good Christian needs, after all. Oh, and hypocrisy, though they won't admit it.

[PurityOfEssence]

15. The Texas School board is the Endarkenment

Just another instance to demonstrate how one can never "play fair" with religion.

[Emit]

16. UPDATE: TX BoEd strikes all references to “capitalism" and fails to pass an amendment pointing out

the importance of separation of church and state:

12:15 – Guess what? It passes. The Texas State Board of Education has stricken from the standards references to “capitalism” and “free market” because the board’s right-wingers think “capitalism” is a negative term. The only permitted term for such an economic system will be “free enterprise.” We wouldn’t believe this if we hadn’t just watched it happen. This is so stupid it makes our head hurt.

12:28 – Board member Mavis Knight offers the following amendment: “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” Knight points out that students should understand that the Founders believed religious freedom was so important that they insisted on separation of church and state.

12:32 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar argues that the Founders didn’t intend for separation of church and state in America. And she’s off on a long lecture about why the Founders intended to promote religion. She calls this amendment “not historically accurate.”

12:35 – Knight’s amendment fails on a straight party-line vote, 5-10. Republicans vote no, Democrats vote yes.

12:38 – Let the word go out here: The Texas State Board of Education today refused to require that students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others. They voted to lie to students by omission.

Here was the amendment again: “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” And this board, on a vote of 10-5, said they don’t want Texas students to learn about this basic protection for the religious freedom of everyone in America.

http://tfninsider.org/2010/03/11/blogging-the-social-studies-debate-iv/

[PurityOfEssence]

19. It's not just about not promoting one religion over another...

...it's about endorsing the very concept of religion.

This is a pernicious bit of deceit from religious extremists, and leaves one with the impression that OF COURSE they "required religion", they just didn't want to give preference to a particular one. That's completely wrong; it's about religion itself, not the particular flavor.

It doesn't say "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a particular religion...", it's talking about the very concept of religion. Thus, Congress should not be making laws or funding actions where we say we're "one nation under god", since that is saying that we agree in the concept. We don't, and we have the Constitution to back us up. Some of us may, and that's our guaranteed right to do so, but the government neither endorses the existence or non-existence, and that's what this means.

[Emit]

20. Point well taken, but I think the more important point the blogger was trying to make

was that the fundie, Cynthia Dunbar, argued that the Founders didn’t intend for separation of church and state in America, period.

[PurityOfEssence]

24. True, and commendable, but by doing it this way, it reinforces a deception

The problem with religion encroaching on the public sphere is that it uses bullshit apologies like "ceremonial deism" to allay fears as it marches steadily toward domination.

I am glad that people are making a stand, but if they do so by parroting an abusive bit of misrepresentation, it's only a marginal victory. The net result of letting abuses like the so-called motto on our money get by is that it advances the acceptance of falsehoods that lay the groundwork for future conquests.

Sorry to be a sourpuss about all this, but I think it's important. I didn't mean any offense to those fighting the good fight, I was more railing against how such a crock of shit has been given a place on the cultural shelf and has now become part of the accepted display.

[Emit]

33. PurityOfEssence, there is no need for

you to apologize for being a 'sourpuss' ~ you are not being a sourpuss ~ you've added much needed depth to this topic. :hi:

[MisterP]

17. ah, but how will they teach the history of the One True Baptist Church without mentioning the

tradition of Erasmus, or the 1700-1840 transatlantic waves of reform and "Awakening"? or the dangers of the self-aware production of self-celebrating history, which many see at the heart of the whole "project of modernity"?

[Neurotica]

22. I asked my 11y.o. son to name one of the greatest philosophers since 1750

to influence political revolutions (he's a history fan).

His immediate answer - Jefferson!

My reply - not anymore!

Great dinner table discussion. I reminded my kids that it is so important to stand up for what's right (thank goodness for the Texas Freedom Network!).

[eShirl]

26. +1

[applegrove]

23. Neocons hate the enlightenment. Intelligence is not for the regular guy on the street. It is only

for the neocons.

[BolivarianHero]

25. What the fuck is happening?

Isn't this the land of Ann Richards, Jim Hightower, and Ralph Yarborough,

[DisgustedInMN]

27. Nowhere does butt ugly bigotry...

.. and raw ignorance, quite like Texass.

Thought those redneck wastes of oxygen wanted "out of the Union." Aren't they gone yet?

[Vinnie From Indy]

28. Who knew it was that easy?

Maybe they'll take out that whole messy slavery thing from the history books as well as the American Indian genocide. Texas children will someday learn that America was completely uninhabited because Old Testament God created the country specifically for white, gun-toting immigrants. They will learn that Thomas Jefferson never wrote the Declaration of Independence. He was given the document by an angel on stone tablets.

[sammytko]

29. He's still a required topic in the TEKS, so who cares about the textbook

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter113/ch113a.html

Its just a show for the "true believers". The board probably doesn't even realize its on a futile mission. What matters is what is on the test requirements and they are broad in scope. A good teacher can teach Jefferson and the Enlightment to his/her heart's content.

[DisgustedInMN]

30. Methinks you ...

.. kind of miss the point, eh?

[sammytko]

32. methinks not

[3324SS]

31. Anyone with half a brain

needs to leave Texas ASAP!

Let the wingnut's have the place.

Is it really worth staying and putting up with such nonsense?