Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Ashamed to Live in Texas

The Texas Board of Education has been meeting this week to revise its social studies curriculum. During the past three days, “the board’s far-right faction wielded their power to shape lessons on the civil rights movement, the U.S. free enterprise system and hundreds of other topics”:

– To avoid exposing students to “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the Board struck the curriculum’s reference to “sex and gender as social constructs.”

– The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

– The Board refused to require that “students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others.”

– The Board struck the word “democratic” from the description of the U.S. government, instead terming it a “constitutional republic.”

As the nation’s second-largest textbook market, Texas has enormous leverage over publishers, who often “craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers.” Indeed, as The Washington Monthly has reported, “when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas.”

2 comments:

BAWDYSCOT said...

Yeah, I heard about this and I do find it a little disconcerting. I will say the largest textbook market is California and it sways way to the left. Will this balance out? Maybe, but a balanced political curriculum has to be the best system. i.e. let the students figure out what makes sense to them.

I have posted before the Social Studies training I received in grade school on the Constitution. The tack they took was the "strict" interpretation or the "loose" interpretation and guess which one sounds better, why loose of course(this is the same with using "dead" or "living" instead). I look back on this indoctrination with consternation. And it was indoctrination.

And csm, even though we have a democratic form of government, this country IS a Constitutional Republic, or as the Founders labeled the new country, A Repbulic of Free States.

John Galt said...

I would suggest moving or home schooling. Seriously, if they are going to pick and choose which pieces of the Constitution to teach your children and then pepper it with revisionist hisitory you need to get the hell out of there