The Texas Board of Education accepted this week, on a preliminary basis,
the recommendations of conservative advisers to make the
state's textbooks read more like Glenn Beck transcripts.
They'd been working at this awhile. Earlier this year, conservatives had
advised changing the Texas science curriculum so that the
theory of evolution would be treated with greater skepticism, just like
global warming and other frauds. (They got a split decision -- the Board disapproved of language
against Darwin, but allowed schools to also teach alternatives to
evolution, such as Intelligent Design and Jesus On a Dinosaur.)
In this week's social studies curriculum
vote, the reviewers' recommendations to the board received a more
sweeping endorsement. The Board approved many big changes, including
removal of Thomas Jefferson from a discussion of the
Enlightenment;
adding Soviet archival evidence to suggest that McCarthy-era
blacklisters were right to throw people out of their jobs on suspicion
of Communistic sympathies; removing multicultural figures like Anne
Hutchinson, Cesar Chavez and Colin Powell, etc. Some
of the removed
figures and ideas were replaced with God and Jesus. In an earlier vote,
they nixed discussions of the separation of church and state.
A final vote will be held in May.
One of the conservative reviewers was Rev. Peter Marshall, whom
the Wall
Street Journal says "preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane
Katrina were God's judgments on the nation's sexual immorality."
Marshall found the state's teaching of history communistic. "Reading
through the [Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills] as they are currently
constituted could give the impression that history just 'happens,' that
random impersonal forces control events," he wrote. "That is, of course, the false teaching of Marxism
-- i.e. that the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is inevitable."
(Marxism is a major concern for these people; in January, a children's
book was briefly banned by the Board because of its members confused its author with the author of another book about
Marxism, which was too close for comfort.)
Some of the Board's changes seem merely mischievously partisan -- such
as one changing the reference to America's form of government throughout
the curriculum from "democratic" to "republican." But taken together,
they represent a conscious effort to indoctrinate Texas students, as
conservatives have always believed is being done to kids by liberals,
only this time the right way. "We're in an all-out moral and spiritual
civil war for the soul of America," says Marshall, "and the record of
American history is right at the heart of it."
The rightblogger response to this has been enthusiastic, but mostly in a
selective, sometimes furtive way. Though some approved the changes
wholesale, most focused on particular things to like about them --
mostly, that they pissed off liberals and the newspapers allegedly in
their thrall. It was a victory for them, in other words, because it was a
defeat for the Left.
"The unabashed liberal bias of the mainstream media is on full display,"
said Chip Bennett. "Apparently, to the far-left liberal
media, any mention of the free-enterprise system, the Christian
influence on the founding of our country; any less-than-utopian mention
of liberalism; or any positive mention of the Constitution,
conservatism, or Israel constitutes 'far right' influence."
"The Texas School board has the liberals running for the hills," cheered
Right Coast Girl. "Pro-American School Curriculum
Horrifies New York (Waste of) Times," cried Moonbattery, who was enraged that the Times
mentioned one of the conservatives was "a dentist by training." "I bet
your typical Texas Dentist has more common sense than a Harvard-educated
Chicago community organizer, any day," Moonbattery huffed.
"The New York Times tried to portray the Texas Board of
Education members as overboard, so to speak," said Opus at MAinfo, "but I find that the things they
wanted included in the Texas curriculum should have been there all
along." (She added she'd "been blogging and praying for a year" for
something like this.)
Don Surber took issue with AP calling the
conservative faction "far-right" and "ultraconservatives" -- why, said
Surber, these carefully-selected portions of the changes I'm quoting
don't sound so radical! "Have liberals fallen so far intellectually that
all they can do is push the use of B.C.E. and hop hop?" Raising the
bar, Surber then similarly picked over the Times story, but ultimately
judged that "the New York Times did not load up the
adjectives" as AP had, and concluded, "Odd that the New York Times
was more impartial than the Associated Press." In other words, carry on
hating both.
Some left the more controversial changes alone, and focused on those
that appealed to them. Free Market Mojo was pleased that Milton Friedman
and Friedrich von Hayek were included in an economics module.
At Secular Right, David Hume felt it necessary to note that
"Republican elites are split on evolution," and that previous school
board battles found business leaders siding with the Darwin faction.
Nonetheless he decided that "resolution can only come if the Religious
Right manages to capture the cultural commanding heights and make their
beliefs normative, at which point they would be good for business." ("I
am skeptical, he added, "that this will happen.") At the same site Andrew Stuttaford admitted there were some
"idiocies" in the plan, but in general "was also struck by how sensible
at least some of the changes (opposed by all the Democrats, it seems)
appeared to be" -- including the inclusion of Friedman and von Hayek.
Synthstuff also approved the Friedman-von Hayek
bit, and Positive Victory called it, "notwithstanding
dubious historical, legal and religious claims the Board has insisted
upon ... some good news in the approved curriculum, too." All this bodes
well for conservative attempts to keep libertarians on board: Apparently
all you have to do is give props to their favorite economists, and
they'll go along with anything you want.
You might be interested in the viewpoint of the Michigan blogger called A Conservative Teacher: "Yup, that's why I went
back to school to get my teaching degree, and why I am a conservative
teacher -- I really hope that I can catch these idiots in school before
they are released into the wilds and teach them that socialist
governments (like China or Soviet Union) are bad, and that Bush won the
2000 election according to the laws of our nation." Also: "I mean, in
Detroit (firmly controlled by Democrats), kids have an equal chance of
being shot or graduating high school, but that's okay to liberals and
readers of the Daily Kos, as long as those students learn in their
history classes about transvestites and transsexuals, and that's wrong."
There were a few apostates. Left Coast Rebel was among them, but suspected that
the "conservatives" who pushed the changes "are really neo-cons," as
opposed to whatever kind he is. Say Anything wasn't sure what he thought, except
that the dust-up proved that the government had no business educating
children (in contradiction to Jefferson's idea of state education -- that poor
guy can't get a break).
Some like Right Ideas were completely juiced by the whole
thing: "[Texas] has great gun laws and now they are challenging the
left-wing propaganda perpetuated in the public education text books!"
"Taking back our country, one state, one text book, twenty million young
minds at a time!" said Conservative American News.
They have a point: It's speculated that, as Texas represents a massive
textbook market, if these changes are approved they'll find their way
into other jurisdictions as well. Considering the state of public
education, though, the new learnings would probably just be something
else our young minds will misapprehend or forget entirely as soon as
they get out the schoolhouse door. Few are worried about that at
present; though the subject is schools, this one's not really about the
children at all, but about the politicization of everything at all
times.
Roy Edroso's Rightbloggers: Exploring the right Wing Blogosphere
appears courtesy of our sister paper in New York City, Village Voice.
Showing 1-1 of 1
The Texas School Curriculum situation is actually a lot more serious than it may, at first glance, sound.
One may well say, "I don't live in Texas, what has that to do with me?"
Texas orders more books for its public schools than any other state. Since book publishing companies need to cut as many corners as possible to remain profitable, clearly they can't afford to create separate textbook versions for each state, so whatever Texas approves for publication, becomes the template for the other states as well.
Since textbooks are revised, nationally, only once every ten years, the Texas Religious Right - that gave us the unforgettable G. Dubya Bush - if they prevail, will decide what your child, in any other state, will learn for the next ten years.
That scares me to death, and I'm fearless --
An organization known as The Texas Freedom Network "A Mainstream Voice To Counter The Religious Right," - http://www.tfn.org - is working tirelessly to correct that.
From their site:
"Call to Action: Social Studies Under Siege"
"Last year far-right extremists on the State Board of Education wanted to teach students that evolution is a lie. Now they are rewriting history by claiming that separation of church and state is a myth and Phyllis Schlafly is more important than Thomas Jefferson. But the Texas Freedom Network is fighting back!"
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
in-His-own-image.com
like
dislike
