In Texas, Social Studies Textbooks Get a Conservative Makeover

[tumbleweed41]

The Dallas Morning news reports that the curriculum standards adopted Friday by a 9-5 vote along party lines on the elected board have “a definite political and philosophical bent in many areas.”

“For example, high school students will have to learn about leading conservative groups from the 1980s and 1990s in U.S. history – but not about liberal or minority rights groups that are identified as such. Board members also gave a thumbs down to requiring history teachers and textbooks to provide coverage on the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy while the late President Ronald Reagan was elevated to more prominent coverage in the curriculum. In addition, the requirements place Sen. Joseph McCarthy in a more positive light in U.S. history despite the view of most historians who condemn the late Republican senator’s tactics and his view that the U.S. government was infiltrated by Communists in the 1950s.”

Students would learn about the “unintended consequences” of Title IX, affirmative action, and the Great Society, and would study such conservative icons as Phyllis Schlafly, the Heritage Foundation, and the Moral Majority.
There’s also more emphasis on religion’s role in US history. This was evident in the opening prayer at Friday’s meeting in Austin by education board member Cynthia Dunbar made "in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ … [on behalf of] “a Christian land governed by Christian principles.”


t r u t h o u t | In Texas, Social Studies Textbooks Get a Conservative Makeover

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Oh dear me Tumbleweed.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

This was evident in the opening prayer at Friday’s meeting in Austin by education board member Cynthia Dunbar made "in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ … [on behalf of] “a Christian land governed by Christian principles.”

:sigh:

 

[xkatz]

Too bad this nation was not founded by Christians, but by Deists... These people need to learn their history.

 

[McBell]

Too bad this nation was not founded by Christians, but by Deists... These people need to learn their history.

No need for them to.
They are to busy manipulating it.

 

[Sunstone]

The Heritage Foundation? Jeebers! They are known for putting out false information.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Yes it was founded by Deists and they wrote some of the works that modern Deists still love and enjoy.

 

[bp789]

I'm just glad I live in a more liberal part of Texas (no it's not Austin or Houston) and I'm taking IB (International Baccalaureate) classes, so I don't have to worry about learning crap like that.

 

[fallingblood]

The thing that I'm glad about is that there are many teachers who have more sense simply will not teach this. I've had quite a few teachers that simply ignore the text books and specially point out areas that they believed were wrong.

 

[Engyo]

I got several chuckles and one outright guffaw from Rick Casey's op-ed piece on the subject in today's Houston Chronicle.......

Especially delicious when this piece is also in the same edition and on the same page of the website.

 

[Smoke]

Too bad this nation was not founded by Christians, but by Deists... These people need to learn their history.

They seem determined to make damned sure their children don't learn it.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Generally, I used to find this stuff humorous, but I'm starting to find it revolting and sick. People should have to show proof of being educated before being able to be on a school board.

 

[Smoke]

People should have to show proof of being educated before being able to be on a school board.

Members of the Texas board are elected and there are no minimum requirements. Theoretically, they could be illiterate -- and they might as well be.

 

[Engyo]

Generally, I used to find this stuff humorous, but I'm starting to find it revolting and sick. People should have to show proof of being educated before being able to be on a school board.

I refer you to the Mark Twain quote in the Rick Casey op-ed........an educated school board really WOULD be evidence of evolution in action.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Seems they have gone where the Kansas school board had yet to venture...

 

[Engyo]

I'm starting to really like Rick Casey's recent op-eds........

Give me the honest boys from Texas

By RICK CASEY
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 25, 2010, 8:22PM

Jefferson Davis' inaugural address as president of the Confederate States of America, soon to be required reading for Texas eighth-graders, is an eloquent document, almost poetic in its language and in its lack of specificity.
The closest it gives to a concrete reason for secession is the South's preference for free trade over the protectionist tariffs backed by the North. It's as though the Civil War was ignited by a 19th century version of Congress voting to abandon NAFTA.
It provides solace to those who want to whitewash history.
“There would be those who would say, you know, automatically say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery,” said State Board of Education member Patricia Hardy of Weatherford, a supporter of including Davis' address in the curriculum. “No. It was states' rights.”
The other Republicans on the board agreed, passing the measure over the united opposition of the board's Hispanic and black members.
Given their persistent exhortation that students should be confronted with the source documents of history, you might think these board members would require an explanation for the causes of the Civil War a little closer to home.
Officially titled A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union, it was produced by elected delegates to a convention held in Austin in 1861 and presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice Oran M. Roberts.
On Feb. 1, 1861, with a disapproving Gov. Sam Houston present, the delegates by 166-8 approved an ordinance of secession that would be submitted to a popular vote.
The next day the delegates signed the Declaration.
It's clear why the State Board wouldn't include the document in its white-washed curriculum. Texans didn't prettify their arguments with flowery rhetoric in the manner of some of their slave-holding allies to the east. Of the 24 paragraphs in the Declaration, fully 17 directly mention slavery and the acts of Northern states to discourage it. Here are some excerpts:
• • “We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.”
• • “That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.”
• • “The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.”
• • “They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.”
• • “They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides. They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.”
Was the Civil War about slavery?
The majority of the State Board of Education looks to a politician from Mississippi for the answer.
For honesty, I'll take the boys from Texas.
[email protected]

 

[Sunstone]

Especially delicious when this piece is also in the same edition and on the same page of the website.

My anti-virus software says that link is unsafe.

 

[Engyo]

My anti-virus software says that link is unsafe.

Yup, the Chron often has a lot of cookies, etc. Our work settings make me reject them individually, and there can sometimes be a number of them. Here is a portion of the article linked:


Many in college lack basic skills

For Texas, it's a $200 million-a-year problem

By JEANNIE KEVER
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

May 24, 2010, 6:55AM

It has been the dirty little secret of higher education for decades: Tens of thousands of college students can't do the work.
Developmental education — reteaching basic skills in reading, writing and math — is a $200 million-a-year problem in Texas, funded by taxpayers, colleges and the students themselves. Private groups also spend millions of dollars on the issue.
But relatively few students who need the classes go on to earn a degree, raising questions about whether money spent on developmental education is a wise investment.
“It's all about efficiency,” said Jim Pinkard, a program director at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. “What are we sending all these kids to college for?”
The statistics also affect the state's work force, sparking concerns about our economic future.
“It's a matter of finances, and it's a matter of work force development,” said Donetta Goodall, vice chancellor of academic affairs and student success at Lone Star College, which serves suburban Houston and where about two-thirds of students require at least one remedial course.
“Funds are limited everywhere,” she said. “If we have people who can go straight through college, who we don't have to spend additional money on remediating them, that helps the work force but it also helps the coffers at the state level.”
All public colleges offer developmental classes, but about 90 percent of the work in Texas is done at community colleges, which educate 57 percent of the state's college students.
Well over half of community college students are unprepared for college classes — the number approaches 70 percent at Houston Community College — with low-income students more likely to need the additional help than their wealthier peers.
Now community colleges have been told to do a better job with those students, prodded by private foundations and lawmakers weary of excuses.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

It's disgusting.

My wife is a social studies teacher in Texas - she's head of her department and uniting with other schools in the district and the superintendent they are going to work around the changes so the kids are truly educated.

The school board royally screwed this up. They refused to listen to any college professors in the relevant feilds, saying that the school board is rebelling against liberal educators. The problem is these professors actually know something of history and education AND help set admission standards for universities like the University of Texas, A & M, Texas Tech, Baylor, and other Texas schools. The kids won't be taken seriously at Texas schools, much less elsewhere!

 

[angellous_evangellous]

One more note: in recent years, US historians have been bringing new voices to American history - most notably new views on American Indians, African Americans, Hispanics, and women. The Western Expansion is no longer seen as a victorious romp, but a genocide. American wars are not exclusively for freedom, but economically motivated. The history of African Americans and Hispanic contributions to American life are emphasized.

In the "corrections," America is good all the time. Hispanics and Blacks are seen as threats to culture and immigration is horrible. It's a regression.