Coming Soon to Your Kid’s History Book, Courtesy of Texas: Veneration of the Confederacy

[white cloud]

By: Blue Texan Thursday March 11, 2010 10:30 am Tweet Share81


Pictured: noted American hero and political philosopher Jefferson Davis.
It’s official. The Texas School Board is close to overtaking George W. Bush as the single most embarrassing thing about the state.

Even as a panel of educators laid out a vision Wednesday for national standards for public schools, the Texas school board was going in a different direction, holding hearings on changes to its social studies curriculum that would portray conservatives in a more positive light, emphasize the role of Christianity in American history and include Republican political philosophies in textbooks
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http://firedoglake.com/2010/03/11/coming-soon-to-your-kids-history-book-courtesy-of-texas-veneration-of-the-confederacy/

[sonias]

1. Just like Representative Mike Villarreal said

The SBOE will probably make the Comedy Central show circuit... just wait for it.

:popcorn:

[WolverineDG]

2. They write it themselves

& then wonder why everyone else is trying to figure out how to :wow: & :rofl: at the same time.

dg

[sonias]

3. "We're Outnumbered"

Texas Tribune 3/12/10
"We're Outnumbered"
Late Thursday afternoon, after losing a series of attempts to include Hispanic history in state social studies standards, State Board of Education member Mary Helen Berlanga gazed down at a new stack of amendments — stripping victories she thought she had gained at a meeting in January, including the inclusion of Hispanic heroes of the Alamo.

Board conservatives had been shooting down her liberal faction in split votes all day — in the latest example, it removed a Hispanic artist because of one abstract painting of a woman with bare breasts — and Berlanga figured nothing would change through the night, a prediction that would prove true.

Then Berlanga looked across the room to see conservative member Don McLeroy proposing the inclusion of three new white historic figures, including Sul Ross, a Texas Governor, Confederate general, a president of the university now called Texas A&M. "Every Aggie knows him. He’s a fine gentleman," McLeroy explained.

McLeroy is making sure that his last few months on the board are as divisive as his entire term. I wish we could fast forward to December when he's out of there! :grr:

[sonias]

4. Statement on Texas Curriculum Debacle - Texas Freedom Network

TFN blog 3/12/10
Statement on Texas Curriculum Debacle


Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller released the following statement after a divided State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to new social studies curriculum standards for Texas public schools:

"Some board members themselves acknowledged this morning that the process for revising curriculum standards in Texas is seriously broken, with politics and personal agendas dominating just about every decision. We could probably choose a handful of names at random from a phone book and find folks who demonstrate more competence and responsibility in deciding what nearly 5 million Texas kids learn in their public school classrooms."

During meetings in January and this week, the state board made numerous changes to standards proposed by teachers, scholars and other curriculum writers over the past year. Among the decisions made by the board this week:

* The board rejected a proposed standard requiring students to "examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others." That means the board opposes teaching students about the most fundamental constitutional protection for religious freedom in America.

* Even as board members continued to demand that students learn about "American exceptionalism," the board stripped Thomas Jefferson from a world history standard about the influence of Enlightenment thinkers on political revolutions from the 1700s to today. In Jefferson’s place, the board’s religious conservatives succeeded in inserting Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. They also removed the reference to "Enlightenment ideas" in the standard, requiring that students should simply learn about the influence of the "writings" of various thinkers (including Calvin and Aquinas).

* The board removed the word "capitalism" from the standards, mandating that the term for that economic system be called "free enterprise" throughout the standards. Board members such as Terri Leo and Ken Mercer charged that "capitalism" is a negative term used by "liberal professors in academia."

* The board removed Santa Barraza from a Grade 7 Texas history standard on Texans who have made contributions to the arts because board conservatives objected to one of her (many) paintings, which included a depiction of a woman’s exposed breasts. Some of Barraza’s works had been displayed in the Texas Governor’s Mansion during the gubernatorial administration of George W. Bush in the 1990s.

* Board members added Friedrich von Hayek to a standard in the high school economics course even though some board members acknowledged that they had no idea who the influential Austrian-born economist even was.

* In a high school government standard about "the importance of the expression of different points of view in a democratic republic," board conservatives added a requirement that students learn about the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

The board decided in November to proceed on its revision of the standards without further formal input from scholars and classroom teachers. As a result, board members cast their votes in January and this week without any guidance from classroom teachers or experts in the social sciences.

Comedy Central here comes the SBOE! :crazy:

[hobbit709]

5. Wonder if we can get them to include

Albert De Salvo for his work on population control again.

[sonias]

7. Do we know if the strangler was a republican?

If he was they might find a way to revise his past just like their other "revisions".

"Ignorance is strength" - (1984)

[sonias]

6. Texas Education Board Approves Conservative Curriculu

Huggington Post 3/12/10
Texas Education Board Approves Conservative Curriculum Changes By Far-Right
(snip)
Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic," and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.

"We have been about conservatism versus liberalism," said Democrat Mavis Knight of Dallas, explaining her vote against the standards. "We have manipulated strands to insert what we want it to be in the document, regardless as to whether or not it's appropriate."

Following three days of impassioned and acrimonious debate, the board gave preliminary approval to the new standards with a 10-5 party line vote. A final vote is expected in May, after a public comment period that could produce additional amendments and arguments.

(snip)

Ultraconservatives wielded their power over hundreds of subjects this week, introducing and rejecting amendments on everything from the civil rights movement to global politics. Hostilities flared and prompted a walkout Thursday by one of the board's most prominent Democrats, Mary Helen Berlanga of Corpus Christi, who accused her colleagues of "whitewashing" curriculum standards.

By late Thursday night, three other Democrats seemed to sense their futility and left, leaving Republicans to easily push through amendments heralding "American exceptionalism" and the U.S. free enterprise system, suggesting it thrives best absent excessive government intervention.

:crazy:

[onestepforward]

8. Thanks for all the information about this mess.

I can't find the words to express just how sick this is. Do you think there might be some hope with a public comment period?

[sonias]

9. Not while this current borad is set.

It will be the same people in May making the final vote. The conservative crazy McLeroy wing has it in the bag.

Our only hope is that the Texas Legislature further strips this board of its power, and then of course the elected new board next year doesn't screw up the textbooks as badly as this board did the curriculum.