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Conservative Textbook Curriculum Passes Final Vote In Texas
suraj.sun sends in a followup to a story we've been following about the Texas Board of Education's efforts to put a more political spin on some of their state's textbooks. From the Dallas Morning News:
"In a landmark move that will shape the future education of millions of Texas schoolchildren, the State Board of Education on Friday approved new curriculum standards for US history and other social studies courses that reflect a more conservative tone than in the past. Split along party lines, the board delivered a pair of 9-5 votes to adopt the new standards, which will dictate what is taught in all Texas schools and provide the basis for future textbooks and student achievement tests over the next decade. Texas standards often wind up being taught in other states because national publishers typically tailor their materials to Texas, one of the biggest textbook purchasers in the country. Approval came after the GOP-dominated board approved a new curriculum standard that would encourage high school students to question the legal doctrine of church-state separation — a sore point for social conservative groups who disagree with court decisions that have affirmed the doctrine, including the ban on school-sponsored prayer."
We either need the DOE to take control of this kind of thing, or we need the other states to be willing to go through this process for themselves.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Still fighting the American Civil War in 2010.
Oi! I'm a goddamn piece of shit cum-stain on humanity, I would regress us back into the dark ages with a selfish, head-up-haemorrhoid-filled-arse mentality and I object to being compared to the Texas Board of Education.
Because this isn't about questioning government per se.
It's about questioning why America doesn't allow the church to create laws.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
"We need to have students compare and contrast this current view of separation of church and state with the actual language in the First Amendment," said McLeroy, who like other social conservatives contends that separation of church and state was established in the law only by activist judges and not by the Constitution or Bill of Rights.
I don't suppose this and statements like "Christian land governed by Christian principles" would provide ammunition for a lawsuit that the State Board of Education is itself guilty of a violation of the separation of church and state? It's not evolution, to be sure, but the motivation sounds, based on these accounts, to be highly suspect.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
I've wondered about this for a while now - couldn't universities ban together and commit some resources (a small contribution from a large number of schools) to create a K-12 series of texts on major subjects, that is designed by the best available experts and freely available for all districts to use? Creative Commons licensing (oddly enough, CC has a link right now to Virginia's Department of Education and some work they are doing) and (insofar as is humanly possible) a focus on just the facts of history and their documentable consequences. To enforce some objective standard of what constitutes a fact, require documented citations to primary historical sources for all parts of the book asserting facts - preferably citations with links to the source material. The final form of the textbook delivered to students wouldn't necessarily include those references, but they would be present online and mandatory for anything that reached the "final" version. Let the broader college professor community decide on the acceptability of/validity of any particular cited source.
Not only would this provide a mechanism for creation and distribution of textbooks that wouldn't be easily influenced by political agendas (tenured professors are about as pressure-proof as we're likely to get and still have sufficient domain knowledge to do useful work) but it would make good quality teaching materials universally and cheaply available. If school districts didn't have to pony up so much money for textbooks, what else could they do with the money?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
"What we have is the history profession, the experts, seem to have a left-wing tilt, so what we were doing is trying to restore some balance to the standards," board member Don McLeroy said in March.
In other words: "Despite being a two-bit politician on a school board, I'm going to ignore what even I call the experts' views and bend curriculum to support my political whims because I am a fucking retard."
They don't sound so "conservative" to me. Lies are conservative?
Environmentalism=conservation, "conservatives"=anti-environmentalism.
Constitution: separation of church and state (what could be more conservative than the basis of all US law?). "Conservatives": church in state=sponsored schools.
The list goes on. The only thing they want to conserve is the rich's wealth. "Antiprogress" is a better label than "conservative".
These "conservatives" are anti-American.
Free Martian Whores!
Also, "I think we've corrected the imbalance we've had in the past and now have our curriculum headed straight down the middle." I don't know if what they have is "straight down the middle", but to me, any correction the other way is a good thing after 140 years of liberal guidance.
Not really. Thing is, you're assuming these "liberals" that "injected their view" previously were far-left extremists. They weren't even close. In fact, by most of the world's recognition they were at best "mild conservatives" so a correction the other way would've been to push a true liberal agenda, this turn towards hardcore fundamentalism only exacerbates the problem that already existed beforehand.
In most of the world I'm categorized as a right-wing conservative, yet in the US I'd likely be labeled a "capitalism-hating socialist" for my political views. You there have Mussolini in one side and Hitler on the other, the middle ground between them is still fascism. What you need to look for is a middle ground on a *global* scale, but that lies to the left of your left, not to your right.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
"rewriting history" is just accusation against someone that doesn't believe your incorrect version of history.
"Rewriting history" means just that. The objection is they are changing what is taught as history to be something other than what the documents and supporting evidence that we have shows it to be, in favor of what non-experts who haven't done any research but do have a political agenda want it to be.
The federal government doesn't get to say what history is, neither do you.
Both the federal and state governments are forbidden from promoting any specific religion and with very good reason. If you bothered to read the writings of the founding fathers you'd see some excellent explanations as to why this is the case. Now you have a state government trying to convince the citizenry that is not the case, using tax dollars; which is likely illegal under the exact provision they're trying to convince people does not exist... all this while admitting they are not "experts" and haven't done any "research" on the topic.
"Under God" was not originally in the Pledge of Allegiance. Francis Bellamy wrote the pledge in 1892. The phrase "Under God" was added in 1954.
It might interest you to know that from a standpoint of pretty much every other democratic country in the world, the USA's main parties are either right wing or extreme right wing. Progressives are merely moderate right wing.
USA fear of anything "social" causes few americans to understand there is a very wide gap between fascism/communism and what americans consider normal.
Most of the world has watched with puzzlement as many american's protested (and continue to protest) against a medical healthcare system even less social than what most democratic countries have been running succesfully for decades.
In my own experience, many Americans seem to blackout when the word "social" is mentioned, immediately jumping to the conclusion that it means "oppressive communist dictatorship" instead of merely "less anti-social". When the USA and it's citizens do so many things right and have so much to offer the rest of the world, I just find it sad to know most Americans simply don't care about anybody but themselves.
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