We seem to discuss school-related issues a lot, so I thought I'd contribute a topic of my own along those lines.

Anyhow, the subject I'd like to raise is the striking raft of changes in school policy that are being pushed forward in Texas. What we find here is a striking attempt to attach specifically Christian and right wing indoctrination into public school standards. (By the way, the main measures described in that article did in fact pass in the preliminary vote.) Already Texas has begun introducing the teaching of "intelligent design" theory into public school science classes, and it is but one of many states that are currently moving along this trajectory. Take a look at some of the proposals mentioned in the linked article. Confederate leaders are to be promoted as historical role models while the civil rights movement is to lambasted as having been a utopian load of hogwash. "To deny the Judeo-Christian values of our founding fathers is just a lie to our kids." Ignoring the fact that the quoted statement itself is a flagrant lie (this country has never been a theocracy so long as it has existed as a nation), you can bet that means the teaching of Bible lessons in social studies class under the excuse that the material is 'historically relevant'. This development is taking place in a context in which we as a nation have already begun the process of replacing the social safety net with an expanding collection of 'faith-based initiatives'...i.e. subsidized religious charities.

I point this development out because it's frankly worrisome to me. As the Times article points out, this is "a battle that could have profound consequences for the rest of the country, since Texas is one of the largest buyers of textbooks". In other words, the consequences realistically won't be limited to the state of Texas. There will ripple effects all over the country. And no I don't consider this at all "neutralization" of the content of textbooks. Conservatives in America seem to have a propensity for claiming to be victimized and wielding these conspiracy theories (e.g. the ostensible "liberal bias" in the media) as the excuse for giving their conceptions special treatment and ultimately official recognition.

In all honesty, I worry about the direction of this country a great deal. Here you have yet another excellent example as to why. Does anyone else here share my concern?

A secular school system shouldn't promote a particular religion. That doesn't mean that religion doesn't come up or be ignored--that would be historically inaccurate--, just that it shouldn't be actively pushed.

If one wants to include religious education in the curriculum, there's certainly no lack of private denominational schools to send your kids to, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, whatever.

-- Sat Mar 13, 2010 2:29 pm --

The history of the American Civil War has to be presented fairly and objectively, and not hijacked to serve a liberal, politically correct cause any more than it should serve a conservative one.

There were many brilliant, noble, and great men that served under the Confederate flag, many of whom had very grave doubts about slavery [Lee was among them]. They were great and noble men in a bad cause.

The Texas story is, sadly, nothing new. The Texas School Board has had a great deal of power in deciding the content of the whole nation's textbooks, going back eons. What makes this all the worse is that at the same time, the textbook market for home schooling is quite dominated by ultra conservative evangelicals. This means the options for grade school textbooks can be pretty limited whether the students are in or outside of the system.

I have always felt that grade school texts do a horrendous job at recent-history subjects. I doubt I am the only one who thinks that, when I was in public school we never read to the end of the history texts because of how bad they would get towards the end. Right around covering Vietnam the texts would usually go to hell, and get worse with every subject thereafter. That said, if a curriculum must cover recent-history, it does make sense for it to include the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s. I think omitting the modern conservative movement, the Heritage Foundation, and the NRA would be a huge blunder. I also think omitting Ross Perot or Admiral Stockdale would also be a pretty big mistake in any text to cover the 1992 Presidential Election. That would be like having a history text talk about the 2000 Presidential Election without ever mentioning the call-athons that slandered John McCain, or pregnant chads.



If William Jennings Bryan digs himself out of his grave, and starts choking Texas School Board members to death in the coming months, now we'll know why.



I don't see the point of devoting so much attention to Jackson's leadership abilities, but the later point of comparing Davis and Lincoln's speeches isn't exactly a bad idea at the surface. It would be reasonable to explain the ideological differences between the two, particularly since it was Lincoln's election that had triggered succession. The question is on the particulars, what conclusions will the texts have in comparing the two?

I can guarantee that if my children are taught such a thing I will be having scathing words with the school board AND who ever is in charge of the district! I will protest and get it on the news if I have to to get it changed. I will not stand back and just let some snot nosed politicians who think they know best teaching things to my children that I feel is completely wrong!

To which I say, that's why I may very well be home schooling my son. As a parent I really honestly feel that it is not only my right, but also my responsibility to make sure my children are educated in a way that I see fit and I will challenge anyone who disagrees with that.

Right here is where I refrain from putting in a gigantic rant about "no child left behind".

As for the decision by the Texas BOA I am disgusted that they are more concerned about political posturing than they are about the children in their state (and the country considering this change will most likely effect textbooks throughout the US).

~spidey

This is an outrage! How dare these people do this im left speechless at this!

When whacked-out leftists are in control of the textbooks and the curriculum [the rule til now] conservatives are pissed off, and when narrow conservatives are in charge of the same liberals are pissed off.

After all, let's remember that the home-schooling movement was started BY conservatives because they were tired of the ignorant indoctrination that was passing for education in the public schools. Now the pendulum, that had swung FAR too far to the left, is swinging back to the centre. As it should: America is 40% conservative, 20% liberal, and 40% are too busy watching 'Dancing With the Stars' to care. This change is reflecting a DEMOCRATIC process in a DEMOCRATIC nation that in order to remain democratic MUST respond to the values of its citizens. The danger is if it swings far too far to the right to the point of distorting the facts and becoming as oppressive and intolerant as the politically correct educational commissars in its turn .

That's life. One needs to get over it.

If you're not already as infuriated as I am on this subject, try this list of those involved with the indoctrination:


Gail Lowe, chair of the Texas Board of Education, an arch-conservative Republican from Lampasas, a newspaper editor, and a strident, unapologetic Creationist, an anti-evolutionist who strongly opposes any theory that doesn't strictly align with Genesis. (http://www.teachthemscience.org/texas/sboe#lowe)

Dr. Don McLeroy, DDS, conservative Creationist Republican from Bryan-College Station who gleefully challenged, ""Somebody's gotta stand up to [these] experts!" (Listen to McLeroy's sermon, "Primer on Intelligent Design" at click here)

David Bradley, a conservative Republican from Beaumont, a licensed real estate and insurance salesman with no college degree who has said, "This critical-thinking stuff is gobbledygook."

Peter Marshall, a Massachusetts-based preacher who has argued that California wildfires and Hurricane Katrina were God's punishment for tolerating gays.

David Barton, former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party; has a bachelor's degree in religious education from Oral Roberts University; argues that the Founding Father principle there should be a wall of separation between church and state is a myth.

Barbara Cargill, self-described ultra-conservative Republican who earned her undergraduate degree at Baylor University, the private Baptist college at Waco, has contradicted the world's leading astronomers with her own observation, "The universe is not expanding."

Terri Leo, a hard-Right Republican and past volunteer delegate for George W. Bush, a supporter of Bill Archer and Dick Armey, and a member of the Daughters of Liberty Republican Women's Club and a charter member of the Texas Tea Party Republican Women's Club. (http://texasgopvote.com/users/terri-leo)

Ken Mercer, Vice-Chair on the Texas BOE Committee on Instruction, is a solid, take-no-prisoners Creationist Republican from San Antonio. (click here ) In 2009, Mr. Mercer worked to have tossed from Texas two 6th-grade math text books, Everyday Math and Connected Math, on the charge they "established New Age religious behavior in public school math instruction." (Italic emphasis is the original) ( click here ) And in an attack on more moderate Republicans on the board who opposed his Creationist aggenda, Mercer wrote: "I pray for my three friends, Pat Hardy of Ft. Worth , Bob Craig of Lubbock, and Geraldine "Tincy' Miller of Dallas. They voted against the Republican Party platform and allowed themselves to be constantly lobbied by prominent atheists and secular humanists."(click here )

Some of those names on the list do make me nervous, but is it any worse than having people like Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn determining the course of public education?

-- Sun Mar 14, 2010 3:03 pm --

Also, should the fact that some citizens who hold views one might disagree with be barred from exercising the rights of citizenship? The evolution thing will be ironed out eventually, because there is no theory that can realistically rival it. Religious considerations should not interfere with scientific theories, any more than faddish psychological or sociological theories ought to interfere with religious values and expression. But much of the rest of the curriculum change is hard to disagree with for the most part [there are one or two exceptions, the most serious being the Thomas Jefferson matter], especially the greater emphasis on American history.

-- Sun Mar 14, 2010 3:15 pm --

Nevertheless, it will be a great disappointment to observers if it turns out that fanatical progressivist educational commissars are simply replaced with fanatical bible-thumping ones. One group of ignorant morons replacing another.

A precious opportunity to introduce a GENUINELY first-rate educational curriculum will have been missed.

Personally, i do not believe that any specific religion should be taught in school in favor of others. All relgions are equal in my mind and to teach one over the others in a public school would mean that the nations recongizes that religion as the 'correct' one many people of other religion even more outcasted.

Religion is something spiritual (at least it should be), something that a person has to chose on their own terms in their own way, to gve the government control of which religions get tauht is like braiwashing our children into beieving something that may not be true and i do no argee with it.

Now, i am not saying i believe in Darwin that we came from monkeys, but i do think that the teachings of Darwnism- such as natural selection should be treated with scientific importance, and as a part of science i see no problem with darwin being taught (though i do dislike the monkey theory).

Wolfmammy- I believe that is why (whatever his name was) fought to get withr prayer or the ten commandments (i forget which) out of school. I remember so any parents getting pissed off that he would sue the school system because of religion, but since religion is seperate from the state- it should have no part in our schools.

When i was a sunday school teacher, i was told i had to get as many children to god as possible becuase the older they get the less likely they would be to accept god. It really made me think of child brainwashing -get them while their young and succeptable kind of thing.

To have the school system take this thought and get the children to believe something whle they are young so it stays with them is wrong espeically when the stateof their immortal soul is (and speaking harshly here) none of the governments concern.

I am all for learning dfferent religions, but if you are going to teach religion in the school, you had best damn well offer ALL religions and make it an elective class. I know i took a world religions class in school and it was great and talked of the main religions. Things like that are fine, it iswhen you want to go monothestic so to speak that i mustput my fot down.

Also, let's keep in mind the most positive aspect of what's going on in this Texas curriculum hoo-ha, apart from the specific controversial items:

That these decisions are finally being made in public and in the open rather than being imposed by a small and anonymous cadre of self-appointed 'authorities' in the educational apparat.

And that can only be a GOOD thing!

I wouldn't say that has been the rule until now, not when it comes to public school textbooks. The education system in Texas has had this degree of control for decades, and has had a right-slant at least as long.



Home schooling as we know it today wasn't started by mainstream conservatives, but was started by ultra conservative Christians. Mainstream conservatives didn't jump on the home schooling bandwagon until far more recently. To an extent the same can be said regarding the evolution/creation issue. Mainstream conservatives didn't make that out to be as big of a national issue throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s, or 70s. They had bigger things on their minds at the time (like desegregation, the 2nd wave feminist movement, the cold war). It was the modern conservative movement that really brought those two things into the mainstream again.

The same can be said for a lot of other countries. Over in many parts of Europe, when kids were being pulled out of the system to be home schooled, it was almost always by religious parents who felt the public curriculum was blasphemous. This made the parents in question look like rash zealots who were irreparably harming their kids' education, so the governments started to react over there by criminalizing home schooling. To this day it is illegal to home school kids in some parts of Europe. Just recently a German family was actually granted political asylum to the United States over this issue (they were a christian family who did not want their kids being taught evolution, but were not legally allowed to home school, so they petitioned to come here- the decision may still be appealed yet, no one knows if it will stand).



A republic, not a democracy (ok, it wasn't intentional for that to be a play on Buchanan). Democracy is three vampires and a human taking a vote on what's for dinner. Just because a group is in the majority, does not mean it can do whatever it wants. Some of the conservative members of this board have freely admitted that their intention is to push their personal political views upon the whole country.

How ironic it is, if you think about it. Whatever happened to the old states-rights battle cry? That is, is it not, a staple of American-conservative political thought? And yet here we have a case that shows that states-rights is quickly abandoned, to the fan-fare of the group that claims to be its champion, in an attempt to push personal agendas down the throats of the entire country.

And at the same time, they simply don't care who has the majority in their OWN state. Two of the more conservative members of this board have already been voted out, the voters didn't want them. They still have some time left on their seats, so knowing this is the end of their positions, they're trying to push policy they KNOW the voters did not want during the time they have left. They could care less what their constituents actually want.

Religion should not be forced upon other people, but the idea of separation of church and state - which I would say the United States does not have - only goes so far. People will gain their opinions and moral beliefs from their religion and as politicians, it will be shown in their actions. In my opinion, being an agnostic, that is as far as it should go. What a person does in their free time is not my choice.

I personally believe in the theory of evolution. But it should definitely remain being taught as a scientific theory, not as fact. It's an incomplete theory and it never will be complete because we could never find every missing link. The misconceptions surrounding it are one thing that need to be done away with, in example: teaching that the students ARE monkeys. I've heard that countless times from people who don't understand the theory and it's aggravating, but I digress.

With all of that out, I would hate to see any religion taught in schools. I apologize if it seems like I'm ranting.

State education has always been about indoctrination and assimilation of one sort or another. Whether it's a ruling, democratic (haha) majority of liberals or conservatives, or the dictator de jour, that is who will determine the curriculum.

If all schools were privatized and actively competing against each other for the dollars spent by parents on education, parents clearly would have greater choice in the matter of their childrens' education.

But that's not going to happen, because State Education Departments are actively working to sabotage any such possibilities. Here in New York State, we've recently had a directive come down from our State Ed. Dept. They've started using tax money to set up a preschool program throughout the State. We've had private preschools already doing quite well (providing an affordable resource for working moms of all income levels), but now parents are pulling their toddlers out of these private preschools in order to take advantage of the "free" preschools set up by the State.

The purported idea behind these "free" State-run preschools may have been to provide a preschool experience for children of those parents who otherwise couldn't afford to send their kids to private preschools. But the truth is that there is a lottery in effect for anyone wanting to get their kid into a State-run preschool – and that means that anyone, regardless of income, has a crack at it.

In a relatively well-to-do community (such as the one where I happen to work), just about everyone who is taking advantage of the "free" State-run preschool is also well-to-do. The resulting loss of income for the private preschools in the area is starting to impact on any possibility of their continued existence. So here we have a clear example of the government acting as a business competitor, driving out the competition with the added advantage of taxpayer dollars as capital.

Nobody's complaining -- yet. Because the preschools are "free" and everybody, regardless of income, has a fair shot at getting their kid in, via the lottery. But just wait until little Ashley comes home one day and tells her parents that the book read for storyhour was Heather Has Two Mommies. Or, next year, when the curriculum pendulum swings the other way and little Jake comes home and informs his parents that cavemen made pets out of dinosaurs. Then people will start talking about home schooling their preschoolers (as they do for their older kids), because there won't be any low-to-moderate cost private preschools available anymore.

-- Nephele

Well, I've said for years that the Texas Education System stinks! As it is, all they seem to be teaching around here is the stupid standardized test!

That said, even as a Christian, I don't think any religious belief should be taught in a public school as fact. As it is, I think there are a lot of Christians out there who have it wrong, and I definitely do not want them forcing THEIR version on my children or grandchildren! I also don't believe in the slant toward one set of political views over another. Makes you wonder why Texas is primarily a Republican state, doesn't it?



Couldn't agree more! I personally believe in creationism (of course), but I always had a problem with the fact it seems that the evolutionary theory is taught as FACT! There are still many holes; hence, why it is still a theory. Definition of a theory: "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. "

As for religion in schools, I have no problem with a very basic explanation of various religions in social studies as it relates to the geographical area being taught about. For example, if they are teaching about the middle east, it is okay to mention the religion of Islam as being predominant, and give a very brief description of it's origin. THIS is part of social studies, as it helps us see differences in the various geographical areas of the world, while at the same time, not influencing any belief.

Leave anything else related to religion up to me...the PARENT! I will decide how I want my child religious beliefs influenced...be it dictated to them (which obviously is not my approach) to them being allowed to go to various churches with friends and such to explore other beliefs. That is MY choice, and shouldn't be part of any school book.

On a side note, my son is a very strong Christian. He did come up to us one day and ask how best to handle situations in school where what he was being taught was against what he believed. We told him to just respectfully read that material, do his best to pass the assignments, and if a particular answer really bothered him, he could put very respectfully in a notation on his paper that "the views expressed within do not represent my personal views." This has been what he has done, and not one teacher has given him a hard time about it, but rather he has gained respect for putting forth a full effort on an assignment though he disagreed with the content.

-- Mon Mar 15, 2010 12:49 pm --

Oh, I forgot to mention how much they are already slanting history in our text books. The girl we had living with us last year needed to finish up a bunch of US history stuff to graduate the last two weeks of school. I was sitting down with her a few nights, and was astonished at how much was being LEFT OUT! While reading through the chapters on the 70's to the present (which is what she was working on), and having lived through this stuff myself, I was amazed at how slanted the facts were! I didn't find anywhere where they flat out lied, but I did notice that they left out a lot of information when it came to something more controversial in history (especially 9-11), and gave plenty of details on things that were "safe" topics. If you want a generation to learn from past mistakes, you have to give them all of the details...the good, the bad, and the ugly!