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- Communist China
- Rep: 130
Re: Changes to Texas History Curriculum Spark Controversy
AUSTIN, Tex. '” After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers'™ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.
The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.
The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.
In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin'™s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.
Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers.
'We are adding balance, said Dr. Don McLeroy, the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. 'History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.
Battles over what to put in science and history books have taken place for years in the 20 states where state boards must adopt textbooks, most notably in California and Texas. But rarely in recent history has a group of conservative board members left such a mark on a social studies curriculum.
Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state'™s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, 'They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don'™t exist.
'They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians," she said. 'They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."
The curriculum standards will now be published in a state register, opening them up for 30 days of public comment. A final vote will be taken in May, but given the Republican dominance of the board, it is unlikely that many changes will be made.
The standards, reviewed every decade, serve as a template for textbook publishers, who must come before the board next year with drafts of their books. The board'™s makeup will have changed by then because Dr. McLeroy lost in a primary this month to a more moderate Republican, and two others '” one Democrat and one conservative Republican '” announced they were not seeking re-election.
There are seven members of the conservative bloc on the board, but they are often joined by one of the other three Republicans on crucial votes. There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings, though some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.
The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution.
'I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state," said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. 'I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution."
They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about 'the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association."
Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 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."
Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study 'the unintended consequences" of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.
Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include 'how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government." The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.
Mavis B. Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons 'the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others."
It was defeated on a party-line vote.
After the vote, Ms. Knight said, 'The social conservatives have perverted accurate history to fulfill their own agenda."
In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word 'capitalism" throughout their texts with the 'free-enterprise system."
'Let'™s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation," said one conservative member, Terri Leo. 'You know, '˜capitalist pig!'™ "
In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of 'the importance of personal responsibility for life choices" in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.
'The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything," Ms. Cargill said.
Even the course on world history did not escape the board'™s scalpel.
Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term 'separation between church and state." )
'The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based," Ms. Dunbar said.
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Changes to Texas History Curriculum Spark Controversy
How long before the CSA begins again? These cats completely want to seperate from the rest of the nation. Florida too.
I live in Texas. On one hand, getting away from that scary national debt might be a good thing. On the other hand, there are some crazy bastards here. 
Case in point:
'I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state," said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. 'I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution."
This asshat has apparently never read the Bill of Rights. Or maybe he wants to get rid of them? That's pretty scary shit right there. 
Without a separation of church and state, you have a theocracy...which usually means people's rights get trampled on and they end up being treated poorly because of their religion. I consider myself a Christian, but I choose to not attend any church because organized religion is a huge load of hypocrisy all the way around. I read the Bible on my own. I don't need a hypocritical preacher to tell me what to think or how to act.
The idea of separating church and state isn't a "leftist" idea like this right winger wants to believe. It's a libertarian idea, based solely on the idea of FREEDOM. The right wing idea is that the government should establish a Christian (possibly Baptist?) theocracy. I'll go with freedom all damn day. The leftist idea would be banning people's right to engage in religion altogether. What we've had ever since the First Amendment has been a pretty fair compromise that allows people to worship whatever god they wish to worship without the government telling them one way or the other what to do. For a right winger to insist that the First Amendment is "leftist" is batshit insane.
As an aside, when you click on David Bradley's profile in the NYT article, you will find he was a member of the Corps at Texas A&M. This is a group that has exhibited cult-like behavior over the years, including the use of indoctrination. Why am I not a bit surprised that he has such an ignorant view of the Constitution and its amendments?
Re: Changes to Texas History Curriculum Spark Controversy
Tejas hit on something. Baptist.
Alot of this Christian theocracy stuff with incorporating religion in how the country is run... what happens when the Christians themselves start in-fighting ver their own factions? Catholics vs. Protestants vs. Baptists vs...
I know the word 'Hitler' is thrown around WAY too much these days. But changing education in the country is actually how Nazi Germany slowly began. The irony is these right-wingers feel they are fighting an Imperialistic attitude, by using Imperial-like tactics. Kind of reminds me of the days of Napoleon.
The day the Republicans got in bed with the Christians and became the party of family values was their death.
To think, this was the party that were abolitionists once upon a time...
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Changes to Texas History Curriculum Spark Controversy
Tejas hit on something. Baptist.
Alot of this Christian theocracy stuff with incorporating religion in how the country is run... what happens when the Christians themselves start in-fighting ver their own factions? Catholics vs. Protestants vs. Baptists vs...
I know the word 'Hitler' is thrown around WAY too much these days. But changing education in the country is actually how Nazi Germany slowly began. The irony is these right-wingers feel they are fighting an Imperialistic attitude, by using Imperial-like tactics. Kind of reminds me of the days of Napoleon.
The day the Republicans got in bed with the Christians and became the party of family values was their death.
To think, this was the party that were abolitionists once upon a time...
Your point about internal Christian squabbles is exactly what I was getting at with the Baptist thing. I was raised a Lutheran. I've gone to Baptist church services in college and some of them take a pretty psychopathic view of things. One thing is sure. All the right wingers that want Christianity implemented into the government will freak the hell out if it isn't THEIR brand of Christianity. The very reason the Founding Fathers implemented the religion clause in the First Amendment was because they didn't want us to have the same situation as Colonial America.
The king of England broke off from the Catholic Church because he wanted a divorce and of course the Catholic Church wouldn't let him do it without being excommunicated. So he started his own brand called the Church of England. Colonial Americans had this sect of Christianity forced on them. The Founding Fathers wanted more freedom for the people in America so they got rid of religion from government. It wasn't because they were necessarily non-Christians (some of them weren't Christian, but this is another topic for another day), it was primarily because they didn't want to be told what kind of Christianity they should follow.
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Changes to Texas History Curriculum Spark Controversy
I researched this a bit more and found something the NY Times article didn't even mention. One of the proposals that was voted on was for Jefferson Davis' Confederate Inaugural address to be studied alongside Abraham Lincoln's. My immediate reaction is that this is batshit insane, but if you take the correct perspective it could be a useful study of history. Knowing the fucks who are writing the curriculum, however, Davis' speech would likely be taught in a positive light rather than the negative light that it should be taught in.
Re: Changes to Texas History Curriculum Spark Controversy
I was taught Davis' Confederate speech along side Lincoln's Union one in school. Neither were positive or negative. It was simply the way it was.
It all came back full circle to what we've known for over a century now. The Articles of Confederation have NO WAY of enforcing public and financial support, thus the reason they failed for the initial U.S. (before the Constitution), and also the reason they failed AGAIN for the CSA.
Anybody that knows anything about the Civil War, knows it was a states rights issue. The states didn't feel the government had the authority, in a Democracy, to enforce legislation on them (mainly abolition of slavery, among lots of stuff).
Well, here we are in 2010... same argument. Health care - PRIME example. The roles are now reversed, with the Democrats being on the side of government and the Republicans on the side of the states.
Gay Marriage bans have been unconstitutional for YEARS. Doesn't stop the states from passing bills/laws within their respective local houses.
The only thing I see talking hold now more is that it's become Capitalism vs. Socialism on a public scale.
The thing that these dumb fuck Republicans don't understand, is that Socialism IS PRO CAPTIALISM. Just state-controlled. But somehow, socialism = communism has become the general consensus. It ain't. In Chavez Venezuela it is, but in theory, it's not.
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Changes to Texas History Curriculum Spark Controversy
The only thing I see talking hold now more is that it's become Capitalism vs. Socialism on a public scale.
The thing that these dumb fuck Republicans don't understand, is that Socialism IS PRO CAPTIALISM. Just state-controlled. But somehow, socialism = communism has become the general consensus. It ain't. In Chavez Venezuela it is, but in theory, it's not.
I tend to avoid believing pidgeonhole labels. As far as the two parties are concerned, both of them engage in power grabs by the government in various ways. To me it's just a matter of protecting individual rights against government. I won't use the label Communism or Socialism because what it amounts to in the end is potential for totalitarianism. That's why it's interesting to watch the hypocritical back and forth of hardcore liberals and hardcore conservatives. In the end they both lead to the same thing (Fascism and Communism are both forms of totalitarianism).
