Texas Conservatives Seek Deeper Stamp On Textbooks

nytimes.com:

The Texas school board is 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.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[hotbarb2614]

05:37 PM on 03/13/2010

If this is what they wantstop federal funding.Seeing as though there pointing out how good the conservatives are.I hope they also point out what they have done to this country.How they broke laws,and agreememts with other countrys. How they lied to go to war to the people and other countries.They should not be allowed to teach children what they want.Now there going to teach religion in public schools. I see this going to Supreme Court.

[beachsandshuffle]

03:03 PM on 03/13/2010

Reagan wanted to offer ketchup as a vegetable in schools, he shifted costs by increasing the cost to enter federal park lands, grew a huge military, that did not make things better.

Confederate leaders as role models? Slavers as role models?

I've spent some years living in Texas, this is not surprising at all.

[saami]

06:54 PM on 03/12/2010

If is didn't affect the books children will read all over the US this would be funny, but sad for kids in Texas. This is why conservatives run for school boards and other local positions because ultimately there is great power to be had. Most history books about US History is full of lies, telling the story of white people and how this wonderful land was given to them to do with what they will. Our treatment of the native peoples, slavery, oppression of poor white, Asian and Latino peoples is swept under the rug. The ruthlessness of management in their treatment of workers, the greed of this country and it’s interventions in other countries affairs including assassination, theft of land (Panama Canal Zone) and just the lack of true democracy (one man/one vote) due to the Electoral College would give kids a chance to see that we don’t always live up to our ideals. The books are written by the victors and tell the story the way they want it.

[gypsy508]

03:51 PM on 03/12/2010

Rewriting history books to leave out all Americans who aren't conservative doesn't mean those people will cease to exist. The dumbest thing here is what these folks hope to accomplish? Protecting their children from the rest of the country?

[saami]

05:06 PM on 03/17/2010

Yes, you are right. They fear the rest of the country or anyone who is not just like them. Sad, isn't it when variety is the spice of life.

[dgsweet]

03:09 PM on 03/12/2010

Yes, this should be segregated in the "religion" section. This has an effect on students from families of whatever faith or non-faith.

This also spells doom for the textbook companies, unless they decided to issue custom books to be distributed via Kindle. Which is probably not a terrible idea. Cut down fewer trees, charge students less money, have the ability to update books cheaply from year to year.

[Magick1]

10:32 AM on 03/12/2010

Revisionist history and indoctrination, nothing like handing a child a textbook and having them take a test on right and wrong answers. Of course, that makes the book the truth.

[vampbella09]

10:23 AM on 03/12/2010

The Confederacy is rising again gang. The south has stood in the way of EVERY socially progressive movement forward in this countries history . Now they are turning to the agents of "truthiness". Why teach acurate information that shines a light on southern ignorance when you can just REWRITE HISTORY!

My fear is that we are seeing a cultural shcism that will lead to a multi front civil war in the near future. "

[disintaGreatNation]

10:25 AM on 03/12/2010

Which is the main reason I think nuclear weapons should be relocated away from Dixie states.

[emack06]

05:13 PM on 03/13/2010

At the rate they are going civil way may be unavoidable.

[disintaGreatNation]

10:20 AM on 03/12/2010

Those who would rewrite American history are correct about one thing: the truth about the U.S.A. ain't so great.

[bujudude]

10:14 AM on 03/12/2010

Whenever people make an attempt to disect the roots and motivations of movements like this, it predectibly gets dismissed as political correctness. It is a throwback to cold war era conservative propaganda where only the accomplishments of straight, white, conservative, Christian men get acknowledged. Thus, the civil rights era, the suffragette movement, workers rights, gay rights, the New Deal, the Great Society, environmental protections, food and water safety, unions and anything that benefits the majority of the country will get sweeped under the carpet and dismissed as communist plots and anti-Christian.

There is an overwhelming sense of arrogance and entitlement behind shennanigans like this. They feel that they and they alone are entitled to re-write history and dismiss and demonize anyone who does look, think and pray like them. Never mind that their actions desecrate Jesus'a admonishments to love and accept all of humanity. They are too obssessed with their innate sense of natural superiority and nothing else matters except thier own warped agenda.

[klbrz]

10:02 AM on 03/12/2010

Doesn't anyone see this? It's not that Texas is any worse than most any other state in this respect, it's that it is so big and those from all over the country who want these sorts of changes to happen work here because it won't happen in California. This will affect people all over the country. This is the second most populous state and the school book publishers are pretty much forced to do what the state dictates. Just like I get solicitations from Barbara Boxer, Alan Grayson, Tim Kaine, and others, even though I live in Texas, people who don't live here should be thinking long and hard about how this will affect them. Give money to Texas Freedom Network - http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer.

It is also essentially an emergency. Many of these guys lost their primaries (you should have seen the number of people running for each seat), but they can push this stuff through before November. If that happens, maybe court cases will stall or overturn, but you can't count on it.

Once again, this issue, like others, comes down to poor and minority voting. If we could get them to vote, especially in off years when no one's paying attention, it would be harder (probably almost impossible) for the Rs to push their agendas. Remember, that's why they've been going after acorn. That should be the most important thing any progressive wants to do - get these groups to the polls consistently.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

07:30 AM on 03/12/2010

This is even WORSE than Christian fundamentalist efforts to get creationism into public school science classes.

Now, they are expanding their efforts to distort into politics, social studies, history etc....





The Republic of Gilead comes a step closer.

[kwinter]

10:11 AM on 03/12/2010

Hard to say if it's WORSE or not ... teaching fallacies is teaching fallacies.

But ... teaching one set of fallacies ... might make it easier to teach others ... so it could be more damaging.

It's very disturbing ... to say the least!

[PresidentRobertBooth]

05:57 PM on 03/12/2010

***Hard to say if it's WORSE or not ... teaching fallacies is teaching fallacies***

It's worse in the sense that they have now expanded their ideology into other subjects besides science.

[Kiri sute gomen]

02:17 AM on 03/12/2010

Supply and demand. Texas currently has a large enough demand to warrant the textbook companies to print off whatever version they want and supply it to the rest of the country in order to keep costs down. If the rest of the country rejected the books and showed they posses a larger demand for accurate books, then Texas would not have the power they are currently wielding.

[eilish]

02:10 AM on 03/12/2010

Doncha all remember that George Bush was never worried about how he'd play out in history? It's because it don't matter, he'll just have it all rewritten his own way and print up a few million textbooks 'splainin' about how it really was.

[JessWonderin]

11:42 AM on 03/13/2010

Dropping JEFFERSON and praising BUSH??? . . . explains Texas.

[2bad]

12:52 AM on 03/12/2010

What is it with Texas? Haven't you people embarassed yourselves enough!

These stone-age school board members are only going to end up costing their state millions in legal fees. Sure as shootin', a group of citizens will file a lawsuit or the ACLU will find a plaintiff and this thing will end up in court. And the school board will loose!

[springsm]

11:57 PM on 03/11/2010

It just isn't the conservative right changes that they are making...they change historical facts as they see fit too. I can't believe they get away wiit it. I am hoping that online books will soon be available in all subjects and all levels. I hope then, there is some purusal of them. I want the neocons OUT of the business of trying to sway our children into their cultish beliefs.