by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
The Texas State Board of Education should give their stupidity a rest, but, unfortunately for the young people of Texas, they never do. For the past couple of decades the State Board in the Lone Star State has been focused on cleansing curriculum on anything they view as remotely promoting any liberal viewpoints, no matter how much truth and knowledge have to be sacrificed in the process. The Texas State Board of Education sees curriculum through an entirely right-wing political lens.
The latest screed put out by this group of powerful nitwits alleges that social studies books in Texas schools have always expressed pro-Islamic views over good Christian views. They refer to these imagined pro-Islamic statements as "tainting" Texas textbooks.
Well, they are partially right. Texas school books are notorious for being tainted, but not by Islamic views. The good ole boys on the State Board of Education taint their books by rewriting history to make it fit their view of how things should have been.
The board didn't like using the religious skeptic Thomas Jefferson as an example of "Enlightenment" thinking, and deleted him - replacing him with John Calvin, a truly non-enlightened individual who has a strong following among Protestant religious fundamentalists - a.k.a. the American Taliban. Teachers in Texas are expected to expound on the Christian influences of our country's founding fathers, but ignore the rationale for the separation of church and state. Modern fundamentalists, of course, do not believe the founding fathers really meant to separate church and state. The word "democratic" has also been removed from textbook descriptions of our republic and has been placed with the more acceptable "constitutional."
Okay, so Texas prefers that their children be stupid. That doesn't impact the rest of us, does it?
As somebody who has been involved in the purchase of school textbooks, I can tell you that publishers make books to please the biggest customers - places like Texas - and they do not make a different version of history for each state. When it comes to textbooks, the rule seems to be, "As Texas goes, so goes the nation." How sad, and how shameful!
I'm not much of a believer in home-schooling, because it is often abused, and the kids involved sit home all day watching television or learning a world view through the lens of politics or a rabid religion. But homeschooling might be a blessing in Texas. At least that way some of the children would stand a chance of becoming educated.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/texas-education-board-argues-textbooks-are-too-biased/
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1 comment:
Great post and right on the money. I used to be a textbook editor and the Texas editions of books were unbelievable to work on. All the stuff about the "theory" of evolution...I felt like I was in bizarro world. What will they think of next?
I really like your blog! Great writing. I'm glad I stumbled upon it!
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