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

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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.