Texas Schools Board Rewriting US History

suraj.sun picked up a Guardian (UK) piece on the Texas school board and their quest to remake US education in a pro-American, Christian, free enterprise mode. We've been keeping an eye on this story for some time, as it will have an impact far beyond Texas. From the Guardian: "The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favor of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy. ... Those corrections have prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting right-wing views on religion, economics, and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement, and the horrors of slavery. ... Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favored separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the 'significant contributions' of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the Civil War. ... Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favor of examining scientific advances through military technology."

Comments

1984

[emperortux]

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

Re:1984

[Capsaicin]

Choosing which facts make it to print and which do not is necessarily a judgment call. Which of these facts are the most significant developments in American history? There's no "objective" way to answer this, since importance is itself a value judgment.

Yes that was my point. However deliberately airbrushing Comrade Jefferson out of the picture, for instance, is going a little further than simply making a "value judgment."

My solution is rather than teach the kids "facts," to teach them History. Selecting which viewpoints are represented to illustrate the variety of historiographical approaches towards particular events is of course itself a judgment call. It is, however, inherently less susceptible to propagandistic abuse and one more likely to illustrate that in matters of history (or politics), in contradistinction to the physical sciences or math, there is no such thing as the one correct position.

Re:1984

[sqrt(2)]

Only when you let the crooks make their own regulation. The working class cannot trust their so called "representatives" to promote their interest. Those in congress all come from the upper class, the elite segments of society and that is who they really represent. Only direct action can secure a better future for the average American. So yes, I want less government intervention too, I want MORE populist intervention.

Re:1984

[Alexandra Erenhart]

I live in TX, only because I married a texan (And he has liberal ideas). I'm from Chile. Chile, as many other south american countries, was founded with the roman catholic religion in mind, and only until recently church and state have been really close together, although the church doesn't get to make laws. In a country like mine, I can almost, ALMOST justify something like what's happening here. But when I got my education back in school, from 1st to 12th grade, we had SCIENCE and we had RELIGION classes. They never mixed up things. Science is science and religion is religion. And I was is a frigging catholic school. I never heard about this BS called creationism. Yes, the Bible says things about how this planet was created, but they never told us that's how it actually happened. They only said that's how they though it happened BACK THEN.

It surprises me that a country called sub-developed like Chile has way, WAY more common sense that a so called developed country. All I know is that if I have kids, I won't put them on public schools here.

Re:1984

[silentcoder]

> In the 1950s, the crusades were considered a just war...
> In honesty, the first is closer to the truth,

Does that include the children's crusade ? Yeah, let's send an army of prepubescent soldiers against an organized military and assume that God will protect them... worked out great too - most of those kids ended up slave laborers.

I was raised in one of the most conservative churches in the world - where the debate on whether women should be allowed to be elders, deacons or ministers has been raging for 20 years and making no major progress.
Even in THAT church's "church history lessons" as part of Sunday school the crusades were called "the single biggest collective sin in the history of all Christianity".
I don't think there has been anybody who deemed them a "just war" since the Enlightenment. That they were largely unsuccessful, that there was military and political factors involved are asides here.
They were not "just" wars (frankly - I don't believe there can EVER be a case where the INVADERS get to claim 'just war' - the invaded sometimes can), not even the deeprouted religious views of those who fought them make them just. The descendents of the crusaders pretty much all decided that what they were doing would NOT be deemed just by God, and thus they stopped DOING it.

In what whacked out place did you go to school that taught any different ?

WTF

[wisnoskij]

They can do that?
They are not even trying to cover up that they are trying to indoctrinate everyone: "Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy."

Sad that this is even being considered

[Inbred_Weasel]

Of course it is absurd that the Texas school board is even considering such changes, but it really is up to the people of Texas to fix their school board.

On the other hand, if an education in Texas gets bad enough, universities and employers might start to pass over applicants from Texas because they are under qualified. This seems like a good thing as it is basically the free market sorting out the educated from the ignorant.

Re:Sad that this is even being considered

[KTheorem]

I think the problem is the free market in this case. Texas is such a huge market for textbooks that the changes made to accommodate the their standards will make it very hard for smaller, more sane markets to obtain decent textbooks at a reasonable price.

Re:Sad that this is even being considered

[EriDay]

Texas is living in the past. Responsible educators are no longer required to accept the dogma according to Texas. With print on demand, states or school districts can make their own textbooks.

If I was a state governor, I'd pay the faculty of my state universities create textbooks for my k-12 curriculum. Instead of paying royalties to large publishers, my faculty would be better paid.

Re:Sad that this is even being considered

[Cidolfas]

We did fix the school board. But, for some reason, we let the outgoing board have a textbook curriculum meeting in a revision year before chucking them away. Most of that board lost their elections, and will not be there the next time it meets. But that's after the new books have been made and bought.

FrostPeas

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero comments after most of a day? Really?

Okay, I'll throw one down. Probably a bit OT, but WTF.

I live in Arizona, ground zero for this crap. I had an interesting conversation about Our State Issues this week.

And I left there thinking:

The problem is not the 25% hardcore dipshits who will always lean this way. Nothing can be done to help them.

The problem is the 30% of otherwise kind, intelligent, educated people who because of some flaw in their heads find themselves thinking things like: "Hmmm, that Glenn Beck fella makes some good points."

I wish there were more I could do to reach them, beyond conversing with them delicately and providing an alternative example by what I say and how I live my life. It will never be enough to turn the tide in the nation, or this state. Maybe not even enough to turn it in this town. But it's what I have. And hoping against hope, I'll keep going with it, and just pray to a god who doesn't exist that power ends up in the hands of better people.

Richard Feynman on textbooks

[six11]

No slashdot discussion of the stupidity of textbooks would be complete without a reference to Richard Feynman's little thing on the horribleness of how textbooks get approved. Spoilers: it involves sex, lies, bribery, political cronyism, plagiarism, and other delicious things.

Re:Two words ...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Whatever happens, we have got the Gatling gun and they have not..."

Point well taken, but that's not what's happening

[jeko]

My grandfather and my wife's grandfather were on opposite sides of WWII. We have radically different interpretations of the events of that conflict. You should hear some of the conflicting explanations my wife and I offer our kids when we travel to some places around the Pacific Rim.

But, to borrow from Lewis Black, we "agree on what the fuck reality is." We agree that you can't talk about Truman without Hirohito, you have to include both Tojo and MacArthur, the A6M and the Corsair.

Only telling part of the truth is a famous method of deception. In fact, the Devil is famous for telling the worst lies by speaking only part of the truth.

The Texas Board of Education isn't even trying to look like they're working in good faith.