TX education board conservatives succeed in whitewashing history

[tomndebb]

@sleeping

Shoot. Can one of the mods move this to the Pit?

Sure.

[Honesty]

@Bricker

If you tell students they must explain how institutional racism exists in society, there’s no debate there. Your assignment presupposes it exists, and asks students to describe and explain it.

So it doesn’t exist?

[Starving_Artist]

@sleeping

If conservatives wish to include their ideas of unfettered free markets in textbooks, I have no problem with that. My problem is that they are being presented as facts, rather than competing theories.

Nobody said anything about “unfettered” free markets other than you. The quote in your OP says “…it thrives best absent excessive government intervention”. “Excessive” is the key word and the one you’re blowing right by.

Frankly, it looks to me like you’re more cranked that inaccurate or misleading leftie propaganda isn’t being taught, because the items you are complaining about in the OP are correct. You just don’t like them.

@Zakalwe

While I’m sure the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century would agree with you, cite?

Please see the above.

[tumbleddown]

@Honesty

School boards are elected positions so I’m assuming that Texan citizens want their children to have a blindly conservative view of American history. I don’t see the problem with this as long as their curriculum meets minimum federal standards.

The problem with this is that as goes Texas, so goes the nation, because Texas orders such a huge number of textbooks, the standards that they demand become the de facto standards for textbook publishers and so the 15 people elected by Texans, many of whom openly admit to a religiously based agenda for setting these standards, are making choices for the entirety of the nation.

[ivn1188]

Man. Why didn’t you go for an easier target with your little rant? I mean, pitting the Texas BOE is pretty extreme.

Props.

[Bridget_Burke]

@Squink

Thomas Aquinas instead of Thomas Jefferson?
That dude was dead for 500 years before the revolution.
If they’re going to history mine like that, they should’ve picked Jesus.

Not just Thomas Aquinas–John Calvin, too; from the Texas Freedom Network’s coverage:

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).

Not that the older Thomas & the original Calvinist shouldn’t be mentioned–but why junk the entire Enlightenment? (Well, we know why.)

Alas, the schoolboard candidates end up on the end of the ballot. Many Texans* don’t pay much attention to those names–except, in recent years, the ones who have definite axes to grind. In the last primary, there were two Republicans running. (And no Democrats–need to do something about that.) The less radical Republican won; word is getting out about the nutcases getting on the board.

• Of course, every non-Texan out there can give me a full accounting of* their* school board election!

[Quartz]

Another amendment deleted a requirement that sociology students “explain how institutional racism is evident in American society.”

Quite right too. It should have said ‘was evident’.

[Zakalwe]

@Starving_Artist

Please see the above.

Still, cite? Oh, and please define “excessive” while you’re at it.

@tumbledown

The problem with this is that as goes Texas, so goes the nation, because Texas orders such a huge number of textbooks, the standards that they demand become the de facto standards for textbook publishers and so the 15 people elected by Texans, many of whom openly admit to a religiously based agenda for setting these standards, are making choices for the entirety of the nation.

We had someone from the textbook industry more or less debunk this recently (sorry, no time to search). Additionally, it looks like a bunch of states are about to sign on to a common curriculum (Texas and Alaska being the only two states that refused to even consider it - surprise) which will further alienate Texas.

[Richard_Parker]

@Bricker

I don’t care if they consulted a Ouiji board to come up with the directive. It’s correct.

I’m surprised to hear you say this, as you normally have some concern for proper process in addition to (what you believe to be) the correct result. My main objection to this whole thing is having a board of non-historians and non-educators deciding what should be put in history textbooks for openly partisan ends. Whether you like the result as a partisan or not, I would think you would have some reservations about the process.

For example:

He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported. “Republicans need a little credit for that,” he said. “I think it’s going to surprise some students.”

First of all, giving due credit to Republicans really shouldn’t be the goal of US history, or paramount among the concerns of textbook editors. And second, of course it’s gonna surprise some students. That’s because of the historic realignment of the parties ever since 1964, with the national GOP using the Civil Rights Act as a bludgeon to win the South from the grasp of Democrats, a fact of which even high schoolers are often aware. I suppose the committee member also wants to see children giving modern Republicans credit for their historic support of infrastructure development.

If we’re going to have openly partisan committees deciding what to teach our kids, they should at least have the credentials to make informed decisions. Having a bunch of dentists and lawyers decide that Phyllis Schafly is more deserving of textbook space than Thomas Jefferson is asinine.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@Zakalwe

Still, cite? Oh, and please define “excessive” while you’re at it.

We had someone from the textbook industry more or less debunk this recently (sorry, no time to search). Additionally, it looks like a bunch of states are about to sign on to a common curriculum (Texas and Alaska being the only two states that refused to even consider it - surprise) which will further alienate Texas.

Someone better tell CNN.

[sleeping]

@Starving_Artist

Nobody said anything about “unfettered” free markets other than you. The quote in your OP says “…it thrives best absent excessive government intervention”. “Excessive” is the key word and the one you’re blowing right by.

In the context of a textbook for those first learning about these things, one would wonder why a sentence like that is even necessary. One could similarly say something like “societies function best when there is sufficient government support for the poor” or “excessive deregulation creates economic catastrophe.”

And why should they be taught that the U.S. is exceptional? That’s an opinion if I ever heard one. Unless they use exceptional to mean “having unique political, economic, and cultural traditions,” like every single other country.

[Zakalwe]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Someone better tell CNN.

Well, FWIW, I found the

[quote]
(http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12039599&postcount=5) I was thinking of:

@Ulf the Unwashed

I make a good chunk of my income by writing textbooks-and-other-educational-materials.

While TX has a great deal of influence in the textbook market, it’s increasingly common for publishers to put out multiple editions of books, each designed for a different state. How many states depends on budgets and so on. Typically, though, you’ll have a “national” edition that is meant for the so-called “open territory” states, where there is no centralized state agency that approves textbooks and textbook choices are made on a district-by-district basis (Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania are examples of open adoption states, which are most common in the Midwest and East). Then there’ll be a “Texas” edition, which reflects Texas educational standards (and Texas values), and often other editions for other “adoption” states as well (the states with centralized boards: TX, CA, FL, and others, mostly in the South and West).
<snip>
All of which is a longwinded way of saying that states REALLY like it when the text is written with them in mind, and that Texas is big enough and important enough that textbook publishers want to give them what they ask for, and that in the long run this (somewhat) lessens Texas’s influence on books that are marketed to other states. Which, in my not-so-humble opinion, is a good thing.

Now, as to whether or not to inform CNN, why bother? They want the scare quote, not an accurate summation of the situation. One of the reasons why modern news is becoming worthless on anything more nuanced than “a tornado hit such-and-such”.

[dalej42]

The part that I find most disturbing is teaching about 'the decline in value of the US dollar and the abandonment of the gold standard."

No high school student knows enough economics to be able to understand any arguments for or against a gold standard, much less the relative value of a nation’s currency and the advantages/disadvantages of a ‘strong’ dollar.

This is far right wing crap right off the Glenn Beck show.

[Starving_Artist]

@dalej42

No high school student knows enough economics to be able to understand any arguments for or against a gold standard, much less the relative value of a nation’s currency and the advantages/disadvantages of a ‘strong’ dollar.

Kids that age are capable of dealing with algebra, trig, geometry, physics, biology and science. As long as they are schooled in a basic way on the various factors that come into play, I see no reason why they can’t get a good rudimentary grasp on economics as well (and for the average student that knowledge would likely serve them better in life than most of those other subjects anyway).

[dalej42]

The gold standard is only about a page or so in my introductory college economics text. Outside of Peter Schiff and right wing goldbugs, the gold standard really isn’t a topical issue in economics.

Bretton Woods and the Nixon abandonment of the gold standard weren’t really covered in detail until my first money and banking course in college.

[Clothahump]

I love my state.

But why did all the religious, whack-job loons have to move down here?

[Squink]

@Clothahump

But why did all the religious, whack-job loons have to move down here?

They want to acclimatize to their likely afterlife destination?

[elucidator]

If there is no Bar-B-Q or pecan pie in Heaven, I see no good reason to bother with it.

[MandaJo]

A seperate, semester-long course in economics is required for graduation in TX. I teach the AP version, which is more or less divorced from the regular TEKS (basically, it says “follow the college board standards”, so I don’t really follow this stuff as closely as I should. That said, we certainly cover arguments for strong vs. weak dollars, and we touch upon the whole gold standard thing, and it always seems to be one of the easiest ideas for my kids to grasp. Honest to god, the frickin’ supply curve is harder for them to grasp than the implications of currency shifts.

[Bricker]

@John_Mace

Yeah, I was wondering if that was sloppy reporting, too. I’d much rather that students be asked to describe whether or not institutional racism still exists in the US and why. I would also hope that textbooks made it clear that institutional racism was very much a part of our history.

Agreed on both counts. As reported, I have no problem with the standards, but if the intent was to forclose any mention of previous institutional racism, or to deny any attempt to consider the question, then it’s a different story.

So… does anyopne have a cite that would clear that up?