Friday, May 21, 2010

Texas is at it again!

A few months ago, the Texas Board of Education decided to make drastic edits of American history, like removing one the country's Founding Fathers, Thomas Jeffereson, from the cirruculm; or refusing to accept that the U.S. Constitution prevents favoring one religion over another. Well, the revionsinsts...uh...patriotic boardmembers countering the decades of brainwashing the liberals have done to our kids are back, and they're making even more cuts.

During the monthslong revision process, conservatives strengthened requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers and required that the U.S. government be referred to as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic." Students will be required to study the decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.

They also rejected language to modernize the classification of historic periods to B.C.E. and C.E. from the traditional B.C. and A.D., and agreed to replace Thomas Jefferson as an example of an influential political philosopher in a world history class. They also required students to evaluate efforts by global organizations such as the United Nations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.

The outright hypocrisy in all of this is that the conservatives who bitch and complain that liberal teachers/activists who are brainwashing our kids are brainwashing our kids to fit their romanticized, grossly uninformed view of American history!
Gov. Rick Perry, if you want to sesede from the Union, please do it! And take Arizona and their "papers please" racist immagration law with you.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor Texas. Nobody wants anything to do with them. Can you see why?

et said...

The core question, of course, is...why are we allowing textbook publishers to give Texas so effing much influence on what is served up to students in the other 49 states, based solely on their buying power/population? I'd frankly like to see the Department of Education in there doing what the knuckle-draggers are all so scared of already and enforcing some level of decent national standards beyond the ACT and SAT.

Here in BC, from Grade 9 onward, Provincial Exams set by the Ministry of Education at Provincial levels end every school year. They are a BIG deal, they are largely problem-solving and essay in form rather than multiple choice, and marking is done by teachers from schools other than the student's, to ensure there is no favoritism.

Do I think this gives HS students in Canada a stronger curriculum and better overall educational outcomes? In Caribou Barbie's words, "You betcha!"

Anonymous said...

Hey John have you actually read the Arizona law? Please tell me how it is racist?

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