Information to be included in textbooks, around the nation, comes from two sources right now, California and Texas. Recently, Texas began its' debate about what education information should be included, deleted, and altered in Texas textbooks for the coming years. Each time this debate emerges, in Texas, it is always heated and generally the decisions have a conservative leaning, as you might expect. Decidedly, this time the majority of the board over seeing this task was ultra-conservative, and though I respect their right to a differing opinion, I am disgusted by most of the changes, deletions, and additions to the information that will inevitably make its way into classrooms all over the nation.
The linked articles cover many of the gross changes made by the board. Follow them to get more information about the changes, than I will provide here.The first change that makes no sense is revising history to include more coverage of ultra-conservative ideology, without an equal balancing effort to also cover ultra-liberal ideology. The board decided to take Thomas Jefferson out of the world history standards on Enlightenment thinking. The board thinks a religious icon, John Calvin, is a better person to cover, than one of our nation's founding fathers. They would choose a religious figure over a founding father; I think it is pretty clear where this is going and how destructive this line of thinking could be. They also included provisions to make sure that students learn about the conservative movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association will all have coverage in Texas textbooks, and President Ronald Reagan will have greater prominence than he now has. The Dallas Morning News stated that high school students will learn about leading conservative groups from the 80s and 90s, but not about liberal or minority rights groups. I don't fear those inclusions, however I do bemoan the exclusions of progressive figures.
The second glaring change can be sumed up in what board memebr Davis Bradley said at the meeting. He said, "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. I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state.” He says this simply isn't in the constitution. He may think so, but that is irrelevant. The courts have said repeatedly that it does exist. David Bradley has every right to think what he wants to, but the courts have found that there is a separation of church and state. If I have to deal with corporations being treated as individuals(as the high court recently ruled), David Bradley is going to have to deal with the separation of church and state.
The third unforgivable change has to do with equality. Anyone reading this blog knows how much that ideal means to me, and the board's decisions show just how much they hope equality never exists. The Board refused to require that students in classrooms learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others, they decided hip-hop was an irrelevant cultural phenomenon, they deleted a requirement that students "explain how institutional racism is evident in American society," they would not allow any additions of Hispanics of importance to textbooks, including Tejanos at the Alamo and the additon of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and finally they pushed through an amendment heralding "American exceptionalism." When you exclude members of our society, most importantly minorities, dismiss their contributions, and minimize their historical significance, you do great harm to the body, mind, and soul of our nation and our world.
The last change I want to cover is extremely hurtful because it is an open attack on the GLBTQ community and sexual progressives throughout the nation."Board member Barbara Cargill, objected to a standard for a high school sociology courses that addressed the difference between sex and gender. It was eliminated on a 9-to-6 vote. Absolutely scandalous isn't it? She was concerned that a discussion of that issue would lead students to think about "transvestites, transsexuals, and who knows what else.'" Though that statement and the elimination of the standard seem tame, they expose the systemic hatred of sexual progressives and blind sexual bigotry that afflicts Barbara Cargill and this nation as a whole.
Education is about learning as much as you can, from as many different sources as possible, and eventually coming to you own determination about a subject. The exploration of history, math, literature, science, art, music, etc. should be broad, far reaching, and mind expanding. That expedition is supposed to build a person not imprison them. To be a strong nation and a strong world, we cannot afford to be like the Upsons from Auntie Mame, dry, vain, restricted people, who are Aryans, from Darien, with braces on our brains. But it seems in Texas there are many who want not only Texas to check their hearts and minds at the schoolhouse door, but they would like to see the national soul molded from lies and omissions with a hollow center filled with nothing but hatred, bigotry, and tattered, outmoded cliches and incomplete information. Turning our backs on education is turning our backs on our future.
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