Texas school board rewrites history
 

(link at bottom of snippet)

Cynthia Dunbar does not have a high regard for her local schools. She has called them unconstitutional, tyrannical and tools of perversion. The conservative Texas lawyer has even likened sending children to her state's schools to "throwing them in to the enemy's flames". Her hostility runs so deep that she educated her own offspring at home and at private Christian establishments.

Now Dunbar is on the brink of fulfilling a promise to change all that, or at least point Texas schools toward salvation. She is one of a clutch of Christian evangelists and social conservatives who have grasped control of the state's education board. This week they are expected to force through a new curriculum that is likely to shift what millions of American schoolchildren far beyond Texas learn about their history.

The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favour of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy.

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Those corrections have prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting rightwing views on religion, economics and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement and the horrors of slavery.

Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the "significant contributions" of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war.

The new curriculum asserts that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society. Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.

There is also a suggestion that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.

The education board has dropped references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous "Atlantic triangular trade", and recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as driven by Islamic fundamentalism.

"There is a battle for the soul of education," said Mavis Knight, a liberal member of the Texas education board....(read more).

While some of the things that they want to add may hold some historical weight these people are ridiculous. A lot of the things that they want to alter are WELL documented. Its sad that publishers look at a handful of states and push that product to the masses.

To the victors go the spoils. Conservative/Christians have had a long-term plan to gain dominance on the Texas state school board. Their efforts paid off and now they're in control.

Very arguably, they have as much right to decide what makes it into the school books as their predecessors, and since they have been placed by the public into these positions of power, it's their right to decide.

This can't in anyway be seen as a violation of the establishment clause?

That depends on what goes into the books. I'm guessing that the publishers will be working with lawyers to know where the line is so that they don't cross it. But who knows? We have this same Christian/Conservative crowd here in Oklahoma. Those of you in the coastal states really have no concept of how rabid these folks are and how they use power. They honestly believe they are fighting some sort of vast and suppressive force, usually "liberal elites."

Recently, Oklahoma's Pres Pro Tempore made the comment that it isn't up to the legislature to determine whether laws were constitutional. They wrote the laws and the courts determined the constitutionality of those rules and that he didn't think the legislature should even consider the constitutionality of bills -- we'll just ignore that they took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

The good news is that the courts will sort this out. The better news is that the ACLU and similar organizations stand to see a big boost in their endowments both from awards of attorneys fees in civil rights cases and increased donations from folks who will come to the realization that we really need those groups to protect our rights.

I read quite a bit about this a few months ago when one of my friends on FB was shouting, "We won, we won." on her wall in regard to this issue. My favorite change in history is Phyllis Schafly, a well known anti-feminist, will now be the only person mentioned in the small section about the Women's movement. :rolleyes: The only thing that makes me feel better about any of this is that the majority of the ridiculous changes, like a big section about Gingrich's "Contract with America" will never be taught if Texas is anything like Louisiana since I can't remember a single year that my class got beyond WWII in history class!

Actually one of my first thoughts when I read this was that the ACLU was going to have a field day with this.

My first thought was that Family Guy was going to have a field day with this. But they already did a Texas is full of backward idiots episode.

I think in most all of my history classes here (High School) Watergate was the last thing we covered.

This isn't the first we're hearing of it. If the ACLU hasn't acted yet, I doubt they will.

There's nothing to act on (legally) unless and until the changes are actually implemented.

oh i know that, i was just responding to vito's comment about the ACLU.

I think the changes will be implemented. There were several votes already that were in favor of the changes. IDK if they need the voters to vote.

But you said if the ACLU hasn't acted yet, you doubt they will. While I have no idea whether they will act or not, my point was that they haven't had a basis on which to act yet, so they fact that they haven't acted yet is no indication at all of whether they will act.

And a woodchuck would chuck wood?

and is that not a response to Vito's post? I was not commenting on the legality of it all. I was just stating this was old news and "if the ACLU hasn't acted by now, I doubt they will."

While I don't necessarily support any of the changes being made, I will say that it is hilarious to me that it has liberals in such an uproar. That's because public education has historically had a very strong liberal bias, and for the most part it hasn't been all that controversial. One anecdotal piece of evidence that I have to back up that claim is the fact that my junior year of high school, which was from between 2007 and 2008, my AP US History textbook was "A People's History of the United States," by radical leftist Howard Zinn. In it, everyone from the founding fathers, the men responsible for the freedom, and the strong Republican form of government that we enjoy today, down the the capitalists of the eighteenth century, who rose America from literally the dirt, to a nation that enjoys the strongest standard of living ever experienced by a society anywhere, as merciless, brutal, and oftentimes downright disgusting.

When we put politicians in charge of providing our education, we shouldn't expect anything other than politicization of the education system. And when liberals play political hardball with that system for fifty years, they should expect conservatives to swing back once in a while.

Generally you can't sue unless someone is harmed, you can't be harmed until the changes are implemented. Sometimes you can get an injunction, sometimes not.

Curioius, what is a liberal bias when it comes to this? I try to avoid polarizing things in any fashion so I don't always see what others may see.

To get an injunction at an early stage in the case, you'd need to be able to show that unless the injunction is granted, the plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm. I'd posit that even if these textbooks had Gen. George Custer being an often misunderstood if not well-intentioned guy, that probably wouldn't be enough.

Right, and posing it as harm to the children would also be difficult, so hence anyone, ACLU or otherwise, "acting" will probably wait until changes actually go into effect.

One anecdote from your own educational background a few years ago does not a widespread 50-year trend of liberal hardball make.

Yes, it's a response. It's just not a relevant response. :p :D

There has been nothing for the ACLU to act on so far. So, there's no reason to construe the fact that they haven't done anything yet as an indication that they probably won't. They know perfectly well that any legal challenge they filed would have been thrown out of court as premature.

One of my favorite lines: The plural of anecdote is not data.

How about McCarthy was just a misunderstood patriot? Probably still not enough but still repugnant.

Beautiful.

No, probably not enough. My hunch about what would be required is something promoting, say, a particular religious view over other religious views. Either that or a total distortion of history to the point of colleges refusing to accept that Texas students received an adequate education in history.

We're talking about preliminary injunctive relief here. I don't even think a textbook alleging that the proper religion of all good U.S. Citizens is First Presbyterian and that all other Protestants and especially Catholics and Jews are going straight to hell, would be enough to show irreparable harm.

And how big a deal is this really? No one can control what individual teachers do. Some teachers I know would use the book to teach students about how these new textbooks are propaganda, etc. And the further these books go in doing this, the better armed some teachers will be to teach kids a valuable lesson -- do not trust the government, no matter who is in power.

Not necessarily. I know that's what you and DF were talking about, but I was talking about surviving a motion to dismiss rather than preliminary injunctive relief.

Exactly, which is why so much of the question goes to what the state school board actually does and how it is really implemented on the ground.

Gotta have an injury in fact, standing and ripeness, all of which are problems at this juncture. I'm with ya.