Texas Textbook Massacre

[will_in_chicago]

I know several good people who live in Texas or once lived in Texas. There are Texans who proudly serve in our nation's military or contribute to our nation and world in many ways.

However, there are times when I think Texas has some of the most highly politicized public bodies in the nation. I would say that this is the case with the Texas Board of Education.

Thomas Jefferson is gone from the textbooks. Instead, conservative religious icon John Calvin has been elevated in his place. There is no coverage of the separation of church and state, but coverage of Judeo-Christian influences on the Founding Fathers. The Texas Board of Education, in my humble opinion, has decided that it will have political indoctrination in the schools.

There is a great story at the Huffington Post that includes a slide show of the most radical changes. Honestly, if this becomes the national standard for education, I would be tempted to learn Hebrew, move to Tel Aviv and register with the Labor or Meretz parties. After all, the school board does not want students to know that the U.S. Constitution prevents the elevation of one religion above another. Sorry, but I have to conclude that there are some Americans who do not believe in democracy or equality -- indeed, some of the board members are contemptuous of the word democracy. (I suggest that they read the Federalist Papers, the writings of Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers.) If the forces represented by this school board ever came to full power in this country, I am not sure that my rights or the rights of those I respect would be protected or truly valued.

Here is a link to the story and an excerpt:

Texas Textbook MASSACRE: 'Ultraconservatives' Approve Radical Changes To State Education Curriculum

AUSTIN, Texas - A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.

Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic," and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.

"We have been about conservatism versus liberalism," said Democrat Mavis Knight of Dallas, explaining her vote against the standards. "We have manipulated strands to insert what we want it to be in the document, regardless as to whether or not it's appropriate."

Following three days of impassioned and acrimonious debate, the board gave preliminary approval to the new standards with a 10-5 party line vote. A final vote is expected in May, after a public comment period that could produce additional amendments and arguments.
Decisions by the board -- made up of lawyers, a dentist and a weekly newspaper publisher among others -- can affect textbook content nationwide because Texas is one of publishers' biggest clients.

I do not see Dwight Eisenhower or Barry Goldwater as men who would have supported such a radical agenda. It seems that their would-be heirs have little in common with these conservative icons.

[Bozita]

1. Great post. Recommended.

These are not your grandfather's GOPers.

[will_in_chicago]

2. An irony

I found out sometime back that my grandfather on my Dad's side of the family was active in the Republican party as a precinct captain in the 1930s. This was a surprise as we are pretty much all Democrats on both sides of the family. Yet, I doubt that Wendell Wilkie, Dwight Eisehnower, Barry Goldwater or even Richard Nixon would find a place in today's GOP. (Nixon used wage and price controls and created the EPA.)

[HowHasItComeToThis]

14. BEWARE, TEXAS TRANSFERS NOT WELCOME IN THE OTHER 49

FOOLISH TEXANS

[MadHound]

25. Speak for yourself

I'll take any Texas transfer students who come to my classroom. After all, they can't help where they were born, and deserve to learn the truth just as much as anybody else.

[Quantess]

43. They may have a harder time getting into good colleges, though.

Who knows...

[Ms. Toad]

3. And, of course the really scary part is

>>If the forces represented by this school board ever came to full power in this country, I am not sure that my rights or the rights of those I respect would be protected or truly valued.<<

Even if they don't come into power immediately, few textbook publishers will make history textbooks available that do not meet the Texas requirements, since doing so would mean they could not make a single sale of those books in the state of Texas - so in a generation this bunch of political miscreants will have effectively taught history and economics to most of the next generation of leaders.

[will_in_chicago]

5. Expect this to go to court

I strongly suspect that there will not only be a great deal of public comment on the board's decision, but a lawsuit if it is enacted. It does seem to call for one, particularly in the non-separation of church and state.

[Ms. Toad]

9. Unfortunately, they are elected officials

acting in their official capacity and what they have proposed (from the post at least) is not expressly religious.

Doubt it will go to court, and doubt it would win if it did.

[Bozita]

7. Today's textbooks become tomorrow's heritage, the America they grew up with.

They know it, too.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. That might say something more about the publishers than about Texas.

Sure, Texas has the 2nd largest school system in the country. But it is still only ONE state, with a population of 25 million, out of more than 300 million in the country.

If the publishers acceed to the demands of the Texas school standards, they are COMPLICIT; they are not being forced into anything.

It's about time we outsourced our textbooks.

[Ms. Toad]

12. Should be and reality don't necessarily match.

The Texas elephant in the room was a limiting factor in textbook variety when I was a teacher back in the 70s and 80s - and probably even longer than that.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. Thing is, if 25 million in Texas can say, Do it our way or you lose our sales,

why can't 280 million OTHER Americans say, Do it their way and you will lose OUR sales. Who would they listen to, the 1/12th or the 11/12ths?

[DaveinJapan]

17. Because Texas is not alone in these misguided efforts?

:shrug:

It's not as though you have 49 other states crying out against it with one strong voice. There are plenty of folks in plenty of states that are just fine and dandy with it (if not quite as activist as the Texan BOE).

This sucks SO bad. If my daughter ever goes to school in America and ends up with a textbook like this, I'll certainly be having a conversation with the Principal about it.

[Ms. Toad]

23. Becasue the other 11/2 isn't orgnized as a single

school board that dictates what can and cannot be bought with that 11/12 of the country.

[Nay]

21. Yep--Texas has dictated about HS texts since I was in college--in the

70's. There was a husband/wife team of crazy RWers (Gabler? Was that the name?) that went after anything in a textbook they didn't like. They had an amazing grip on the whole process.

[Subdivisions]

4. Radicalized Christians, America's Taliban. n/t

[aquart]

6. If we paid them, would Mexico take them?

Mexico has health care, doesn't it?

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. No, mexico thinks Tejanos, as in the gringo ones

are just loco en la cabeza, and they don't have enough psychiatrists.

:hi:

[Canuckistanian]

8. A 10-5 party line vote. My goodness, how fair and balanced.

Texas is screwed.

But I see no reason for the rest of the country to be dragged down to their Neaderthal level.

Insist on non-Texan textbooks for your children, if you value what's left of education.

[Bozita]

11. And we're gonna test kids on "facts" like Joe McCarthy was the first casualty of the war on terror

[Posteritatis]

33. Don't forget removing Thomas Jefferson from the curriculum in favor of Calvin and Aquinas. (nt)

[fujiyama]

13. If I had kids that used

textbooks containing that kind of indoctrinating overtly political garbage I'd be tempted to homeschool him or her.

WTF is wrong with these people?

[Maat]

34. I do homeschool my daughter.

That way, I can make sure she learns all about the writings and actions of Thomas Jefferson. We're out here in California - in a very conservative area.

[troubledamerican]

16. Texas Schoolbook Depository

Depilatory

[hfojvt]

18. there is one consolation though

lots of students are not paying much attention to the teacher or reading or remembering very much of the textbook.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6M7K-nNgHY

[upi402]

19. Neocons will write their history, and it'll be glorious

What pisses me off a lot about "Democrats" not investigating BushCo is that textbooks will omit their crimes and report their debacle as necessary and fruitful. Maybe 1 line that we complain.

I think it's time we took the taboo off of comparisons to Nazi Germany. If we forget history, we repeat it. But if we can't even talk about repeating history, while we are repeating it...

[MrScorpio]

20. I guess that the Texas Board of Education isn't that interested in preparing students for college

This is a pure attempt at political indoctrination, if I've ever seen one.

[Echo In Light]

22. And I'm supposed to give a shit about Texans serving "proudly" in our nation's military because?

You're correct. I don't.

[WinkyDink]

24. Don't over-think. THESE PEOPLE ARE FASCISTS. FASCISTS RE-WRITE HISTORY.

[MadHound]

26. Well, they may publish these atrocities of history books,

My school district may even buy them for my classes. Doesn't mean that I have to actually use the texts in class. Many, many states have education requirements that state that social studies classes use primary documents. Well, I can do that, teach entirely from primary documents, and screw using the books.

[Flubadubya]

27. DOMINIONISTS...

are "heaven-bent" on turning this democracy into a theocracy.

And don't forget their right-wing political agenda. Already, in their new text books they have done this:

"Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a 'constitutional republic', rather than 'democratic'..." :puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

[will_in_chicago]

28. You stated one of my worries

I would suggest that the Texas Board of Education (perhaps they should be renamed the Texas Borg of Education) read the writings of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers as well as the Federalist Papers. There, they will find a few references to democracy.

I am gravely worried about the dominionists. Let me recommend a good site that I sometimes use to check on their activities: [link:http://www.jewsonfirst.org/|Jews On First: the Jewish response to the Christian right}. This is one proud, American Jew who does not want to live in a theocracy or what I consider someone else's bizarre interpretations of theology and history.

[Flubadubya]

32. Thanks for the link...

That is an interesting site. I will check it out more fully.

And yes, the thought of an American government dominated by theocrats (i.e. Dominionists) is an extremely frightful proposition. The country would be run more like the Taliban than anyting else. Shudder! :scared:

[TexasObserver]

29. Progressives must use this to stop their STATE from using these textbooks.

Texas has long had its school books controlled by nut jobs on the right. At least the past 15 years. That's bad enough for Texas, but the real damage comes from OTHER states using those books, too.

If everyone who frets about Texas and its idiotic choices for text books would use their time and energy to lobby their state not to use those texts, it would be time well spent. That's the real battle - stopping the influence of the Texas GOP troglodytes from shaping the books of other states.

[WillyT]

30. K & R !!!

:kick:

[tanyev]

31. This is their last, desperate attemp to exert their influence.

Several of the most extreme members of the SBOE lost in the recent GOP primary and will be gone by next January. Also, the state of Texas has changed their textbook purchasing policies--it will soon be handled at local levels, diminishing the exaggerated influence Texas currently holds over textbook publishers. Thank goodness.

[will_in_chicago]

35. This is good to know

I am glad that this is the case.

A friend who lives in Texas suggested national text book standards to avoid the situation of one state dominating the entire nation. I would prefer that a panel of scholars and education experts be on such a panel.

What are your thoughts?

[tanyev]

38. You mean something like this?

Panel Proposes Single Standard for All Schools

A panel of educators convened by the nation’s governors and state school superintendents proposed a uniform set of academic standards on Wednesday, laying out their vision for what all the nation’s public school children should learn in math and English, year by year, from kindergarten to high school graduation.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=7894969

It sounds like a good idea to me. Unfortunately, Gov. Goodhair seems to think that being #49 and #46 in the national rankings for SAT scores is just fine, thank you very much.


Alaska and Texas are the only states that declined to participate in the standards-writing effort. In keeping his state out, Gov. Rick Perry argued that only Texans should decide what children there learn.


I don't pay quite as much attention to the details of educational issues as I would if I had kids. I do hope Democrat Bill White runs a strong campaign for governor this year and maybe we will see the last of Rick "What GWB Would Be Like If He Hadn't Killed Off So Many Brain Cells With Drugs and Alcohol" Perry.

[will_in_chicago]

41. Perry , the Dominionists and the GOP

I called into http://www.thejefffariasshow.com">The Jeff Farias Show this afternoon and said that the decision by the Board of Education was essentially a gift to the Dominionists. If Thomas Jefferson can be taken out of the textbooks, who else is next. I also wonder if the effort to take the word democracy out of the books is part of a larger agenda. I see more conservatives saying that we are not a democracy but a constitutional republic, and equating democracy with mob rule. We know that Ronald Reagan tarred the word liberal in the minds of many, and that Glenn Beck is targeting the word progressive. Is the word "democracy" the next target of the Far Right in our country?

I am determined to oppose such efforts. Too many good men and women have struggled, marched, fought and died for us to lose our democratic rights to the agenda of a few who seem content to serve corporations and a particularly interpretation of a religious faith.

Let us hope that there is a lot of push back and that Bill White can bring Texas back from the edge.

[donheld]

36. Can we say Texas is entering into it's own dark ages?

[will_in_chicago]

39. It has been prepared for a while

For some background on how we got to this point, let me recommend a thread elsewhere that looks at elections to the school board last may: http://unfilterednewsnetwork.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=10085">Texas Board of Education Chooses Christian Revisionist on Panel. The thread has lots of good links.

[donheld]

42. Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

[Telly Savalas]

37. Hopefully they don't allow charter schools in Texas

Because every student in Texas should be exposed to this awesome curriculum.

[will_in_chicago]

44. Charter schools

I suspect that there will be a move to defund public schools in Texas. That is a common tactic for the GOP.

My concern is how the state standards will impact students. I hope that we hear from the admissions directors at a few universities on how these changes will likely hurt students.