Texas Board of Education Secedes From Reality

[kristine]

First they came for evolution, then they came for Thomas Jefferson and now it's the slave trade...how handy we have to learn these things from a UK news source...

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns

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....

"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.

Hey Texan's - home schooling is looking better and better...WTF.

I need an emocon for the feeling of total disgust...

[Caitshidhe]

I'm more frustrated that we have to learn of this through a UK news. WHY ARE WE NOT UP IN ARMS ABOUT THIS? Isn't that one of the things we were supposed to learn from Orwell? The first step to becoming a totalitarian society is rewriting history and brainwashing brats! Ugh...

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

The sad part is, my dad actually believes this.

[veca]

US stories ran March 12 on the subject:

Local Texas news story:
www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12132609

USA Today:
content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/03/texas-school-board-backs-conservative-curriculum/1

[Caitshidhe]

Why isn't it being shouted about? Why aren't people honing in on this like Tiger Woods and his happy-pants? I realize we have a huge oil-spill off the coast of Louisiana, but this is the kind of stuff that makes the rest of the world look at the US and go, "OH MY GOD, WHAT A BUNCH OF BACKWARDS RELIGIOUS NUTCASES!" When I read about things like this, I'm actually embarrassed that the country I live in is being this stupid. It makes me want to walk to Canada and bang on the border gates going, "LET ME OUUUTTTT!"

[The_L]

May 18, 2010 8:48:14 GMT -5 Caitshidhe said:

Why isn't it being shouted about? Why aren't people honing in on this like Tiger Woods and his happy-pants? I realize we have a huge oil-spill off the coast of Louisiana, but this is the kind of stuff that makes the rest of the world look at the US and go, "OH MY GOD, WHAT A BUNCH OF BACKWARDS RELIGIOUS NUTCASES!" When I read about things like this, I'm actually embarrassed that the country I live in is being this stupid. It makes me want to walk to Canada and bang on the border gates going, "LET ME OUUUTTTT!"

Not to mention that such "schooling" (I hate to sully Texas's policies with the name) creates more people who think that creating an environmental disaster in the name of money is a good thing. So basically, Dunbar is increasing the chances that this sort of thing will happen again.

As for the slavery thing: I'm sure there were a handful of slaveowners who were reasonably kind to their slaves. I know for a fact that most of our Founding Fathers owned slaves, so slaveownership doesn't preclude greatness. But that doesn't make slavery itself any less abhorrent. The fact that such practices as buying female slaves as "breeders" or brutally whipping field hands for minor offenses were common practice indicates that slavery dehumanizes its victims to a dangerous degree. When you can view people as property, it opens the door to treating them in disgusting ways without reprisal.


And of course, NONE OF THIS matters to Dunbar. She's on record as saying that she wants to destroy the public school system in Texas completely. Why? Because apparently she thinks that all parents both want, and can afford, to send their kids to private Christian academies. Either that, or she thinks poor people don't deserve an education. Hard to tell, really.

[Her3tiK]

I realize these kinds of people feel like they've been backed into a corner, and in many ways they have, so I want to say this stupidity is an act of desperation that's going to fail but...

*has no words*

The California legislature is considering a bill that would bar them from being used in the state's schools.

At least my state's fighting this somehow.

[Caitshidhe]

Because apparently she thinks that all parents both want, and can afford, to send their kids to private Christian academies. Either that, or she thinks poor people don't deserve an education. Hard to tell, really.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's a little bit of both. Either that, or she wants to overhaul the public system and transform it into a public network of fundamentalist Christian schools that teach creationism and guns and god and all kinds of history revisionism.

Fuck it, just let Texas secede from the nation. Get all the sane Texans out and let them do whatever the fuck they want with their school systems and government. In one generation they'll be back to living in caves, beating off wolves with sticks, and sacrificing virgin sheep to Jesus and George Bush. (That is, if they don't go broke in a few years and BEG to be let back into the union.)

[Her3tiK]

May 18, 2010 9:15:56 GMT -5 Caitshidhe said:

Because apparently she thinks that all parents both want, and can afford, to send their kids to private Christian academies. Either that, or she thinks poor people don't deserve an education. Hard to tell, really.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's a little bit of both. Either that, or she wants to overhaul the public system and transform it into a public network of fundamentalist Christian schools that teach creationism and guns and god and all kinds of history revisionism.

Fuck it, just let Texas secede from the nation. Get all the sane Texans out and let them do whatever the fuck they want with their school systems and government. In one generation they'll be back to living in caves, beating off wolves with sticks, and sacrificing virgin sheep to Jesus and George Bush. (That is, if they don't go broke in a few years and BEG to be let back into the union.)

Do we have to wait for them to secede? We could probably kick them out if they continue with this behavior.

[Caitshidhe]

Is it possible for the US to kick a state out? I've no idea. Because if that were the case, may I suggest jettisoning a few other states like Mississippi and Missouri and Alabama? If not, then it's only a matter of time before some serious loud noises are made by the state about secession. I remember reading that something ridiculously high like 18% or 20% (I forget which, but both are a huge number) of Texans believe that the state should secede from the union.

[Madame Scarlet]

May 18, 2010 9:27:21 GMT -5 Caitshidhe said:

Is it possible for the US to kick a state out? I've no idea. Because if that were the case, may I suggest jettisoning a few other states like Mississippi and Missouri and Alabama? If not, then it's only a matter of time before some serious loud noises are made by the state about secession. I remember reading that something ridiculously high like 18% or 20% (I forget which, but both are a huge number) of Texans believe that the state should secede from the union.

My boss wants all groups of people who want to secede to be allowed to so she can revel in the fact that they're idiots who just cut off all their resources.

[azolgar]

You know, there was a christian couple with children here in Germany who sought asylum in the US and moved to somewhere in the Bible Belt because they thought our schools weren't being christian enough (and it's illegal to homeschool children here).
In case anyone feels the need to go that route the other way around, we've got plenty of space here

[ez-c]

This seems appropriate:

www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-march-17-2010/don-t-mess-with-textbooks

[booley]

May 18, 2010 9:27:21 GMT -5 Caitshidhe said:

Is it possible for the US to kick a state out? I've no idea. Because if that were the case, may I suggest jettisoning a few other states like Mississippi and Missouri and Alabama? ....

Only if we keep St. Louis and Kansas City.

Southern Missouri, yeah you can dump that.

I do not want to get stuck in a country filled with idiot cons. (even though technically I already am.)

[Caitshidhe]

Well, Virginia split into two when it seceded so there's no reason that Missouri can't do the same.

[wisechild]

Secession will not happen. Stop talking about it.

If the Texas School Board keeps up with the warped right-wing perspectives and leaving big holes throughout, then I see the possibility that they could just hasten the adaption of Kindle and iPad like tablets for education. Then publishers would issue the "Texas Edition" and general edition e-books. I hope that Texas would adapt reader tablets first, so that publishers can print with less burden regarding Texas' sanctioned right-wing political correctness. Maybe somebody should write Steve Jobs.

Do educators always rigidly follow the curriculum, anyway? I would like to think that if they go too far, they might create the demand for alternatives. Mostly. the ball would be in the hands of out-of-state educators.