The Texas State Board of Education is attempting to distort the story of American History and to establish a right wing version, and just at a time when membership of the Board is changing! Textbook decisions that affect not just Texas, but the whole nation, due to the large number of students in the Lone Star State, which encourages textbook publishers to tend to follow Texas standards of what should be taught in the publication of nationwide textbooks, endangers history education as we know it!
The conservatives want to emphasize the free enterprise system; organized religion; the conservative resurgence in politics in the 1980s and 1990s; and the role of pressure groups such as the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.
They also want to deemphasize the New Deal and Great Society; the civil rights movement; treatment of American foreign policy as imperialistic; and take such people as Ralph Nader and Ross Perot out of the curriculum and promote the significance of Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson on an even keel with Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant!
The role of racial and religious minorities would be toned down, and the concept of American as a Christian nation would be promoted. The concept that the federal government regulation and intervention is evil would also be emphasized, and the significance of the new Tea Party Movement would be taught.
This attempt by the Right in Texas is a plan to propagandize their version of history, a totally distorted view that any American historian, and really any educated, open minded person outside of the history field, would condemn! This is an attempt at brainwashing to promote the views of an elite that already has distorted science, and will not stop until people of principle step up and fight for freedom of thought, rather than distorted views of the history of our nation!
Yes, we can mention a lot of what the Texas State Board of Education has proposed in the curriculum, but NOT at the expense of alternative views and free inquiry! The historical associations (the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians), and local and regional historical associations, and universities, museums and historical societies, need to unite against this attempt to destroy and distort history education and knowledge by these right wing extremist activists in Texas!
It is amazing how politics and Texan conservative idealism has branched into long-thought unchartered territory, such as education!
Distorting the facts does nothing to benefit society. Education is about truth, knowledge, building skills and using those skills in real-life. When you teach students distorted facts, you are engaging them to embrace a closed-minded way of thinking which hurts students.
States and nations that engage in promoting authentic education, based on finding the truth and facts, are always going to be advanced, innovative and powerful. America is competting with other vastly-emerging nations that do not shun or distort knowledge. How are students who are thaught distorted facts supposed to emerge as innovators, inventers, entreprenuers, teachers, researchers, and leaders?
Feeding students unfactual information can isolate them and hinder genuine progress. What do these distorters have to gain? When people are thaught the wrong thing, they can become isolated from emerging nations. It becomes difficult to compete amoung highly-educated people of other countries (does China and India ring a bell?) For people and a nation to be on top, education is the fuel that advances countries, and without proper and decent education, you are allowing generations to be set-back.
I couldn’t agree more. The issue of education has been greatly politicized, which is extremely troubling. The quality of education for our nation’s children is directly tied to the future of our country. If conservatives loved the United States as much as they claim, they would not do such a disservice to the education system by rewriting textbooks as a manifesto of their ideology.
Seriously? And the extreme left hasn’t don their fair share of corrupting our educational systems? Do you know what the U.S. Ranks worldwide in education? 17th or worse. And the LEFT has been the dominating force behind out education – so both sides are to blame. Stop the “left-Right” argument to distract away from the truth. And that is our government should NOT HAVE ONE SINGLE THING to do with our educational system, PERIOD!
Wise up and focus on the real issues. Get politics completely OUT of the school system and we won’t have these irrelevant debates.
Here’s an example of what you’re progressive “influence” has been – and completely FABRICATED about our history:
“Dr. Vitz goes on to write: Some particular examples of the bias against religion are significant. One social studies textbook has 30 pages on the Pilgrims, including the first Thanksgiving. But there is not one word (or image) that referred to religion as even a part of the Pilgrims life. One mother whose son is in a class using this book wrote me to say that he came home and told her that Thanksgiving is when the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians. The mother called the principal of this suburban New York High School to point out that Thanksgiving is when the Pilgrims thanked God. The principal responded by saying that was her opinion. The schools could only teach what was in the books!
In Teaching about Thanksgiving, public school children in Seattle, Wash., learned that: The Pilgrims were narrow-minded bigots who survived initially only with the Indians help, but turned on them when their help wasnt needed anymore. This booklet, propounded by school authorities, claimed that Increase Mather preached a 1623 sermon and gave special thanks to God for the plague of smallpox which has wiped out the majority of the Wampanoag Indians, praising God for destroying chiefly young men and children. Of historic fact, Increase Mather, was not born until 1639!!!”
Yeah – do your homework before spouting off left and right arguments – maybe we can just agree to disagree and then get gvt out of the school system.
http://www.thetandd.com/news/opinion/article_ab4e631b-f00d-5637-8e08-ae746216b114.html#ixzz1aIseL73q