Posted on 03/13/2010 10:48:02 AM PST by Titus-Maximus
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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I like the Venona addition - finally acknowledging the hard evidence of deep communist infiltration which the Left and Sean Penn have denied for years (they were all innocents), the Italian and German internment (of which I have won countless bets from utterly bewildered liberals), and the separation issue - which of course is not in the Constitution. ('Separation' got its legs out of the hate spewed upon Irish Catholics and their building of Catholic Schools - the device was picked up and used like a bludgeon by the nativists.)
Let's turn the country around page by page.
Glenn Beck said something yesterday that I thought was profound but, at the same time it was just so simple. Just simply use the letters, documents, diaries, ect, first hand accounts, from that time. That would put an end to a lot of rewording, twisting and rewriting.
Thank you, Texas.
This is the type of cultural shift that is going to have to take place in American institutions that have been overrun and tainted by the left - with education and academia being a major one.
Yay for Texas !
No doubt this is a nice change from the anti-US, white man=bad stuff that has polluted text books. I don't understand why the battle with Darwin. High school kids are savvy enough to deal with Biology. Obviously not all of us who studied Darwin have been indoctinated. Censorship is rarely a good strategy.
Sort of a Henry Commager Steele treatment of the Civil War. Unfortunately the pserson(s) who get to select the documents can bias the presentation so that doesn’t guarantee anything.
You kind of get the impression that the NYT thinks this is a bad thing. :)
Textbooks pre-1970 had a different view than the socialist'lite crap pushed for the past couple decades.
Oh, the nightmare of leftism is about to begin!!!
They thought they were winning wars. The imbecile fools! These are battles and skirmishes ONLY.
The words of Admiral Yamamoto rings in our ears:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
What a price to pay for privilege of government paid doctors visits!!!
Well, it's about time!
They also voted to leave out the word “Capitalism” and replace it with “Free enterprise”.. which is silly since there is no such thing as “free” enterprise anymore.
I suppose your right. Better to just teach them at home if you can, and if you can’t, correct what the school teaches wrong. I think most parents that are involved with there kids, do a pretty good job of that.
Right they need to make sure to include what Darwin said about how blacks are less evolved than whites. That would certainly shake things up.
[W]ri[gh]ting the wrongs that were put in by the Libs in the first place!
Huffingtonpost has a different take on this, of course. Such a hit piece....I could cry. This is the type of stuff my liberal friends read and blindly believe.
How to post a link?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-w-smith/conservatives-re-write-de_b_495293.html
Can’t tell you the story as such but there have been several articles posted over the last few days about the Education Board and the rewrites. You may take a look at a few of them for different takes. Scroll down this page and you’ll find them:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=texas
Pig sqeelings from the Libs, LOL!
“In the recent Texas primary elections, Republican Hispanic candidates won only three of 30 GOP primary contests (four others are in runoffs). Incumbent Republican Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo was beaten by an unknown, un-funded candidate named David Porter. The GOP ballots must have been printed on race cards.”
LOL-It takes guts to leave someone out who was also a railroad commissioner. I wonder if its because he’s black and being supported by Jim DeMint-thus destroying that articles entire point...
LOL-It takes guts to leave someone out who was also a railroad commissioner. I wonder if its because he’s black and being supported by Jim DeMint-thus destroying that articles entire point...
If you are referring to Williams his term isn’t up and thus he wasn’t on the ballot this time around.
Foolish, foolish, foolish conservatives!!! They are fighting a raging Marxist forest fire with a water pistol!
Why can't conservatives see that they **MUST** MUST** MUST*** work to close every government K-12 school in this nation! They must work to see that every child has access to a low cost ( or tuition-free), conservative, and private education that **thoroughly** integrates Judeo Christian principles and our nation's founding principles into every course subject and every school policy?
1) Don't conservatives see the danger here? So?...What happens when the left gains control of the school board either through honestly winning the elections or by fraud? If the government owns the schools they there is always the opportunity for liberal to gain control. The best solution is to have no government schools for the liberals to control! ( Is a “duh” necessary?)
2) Our government schools are thoroughly infested from top to bottom by Marxists and by teachers who have been trained in Marxist dominated colleges of education. Does it matter what the textbook says, if the Marxist teacher or Marxist trained teacher can frame the argument?
3) When are conservatives going to realize that simply by attending children learn that the government has the power to take money from their neighbor to pay for a service that their parents want tuition-free. THIS IS A DAILY LESSON IN BEING COMFORTABLE WITH SOCIALISM!!!! If the government can take money from a neighbor for school, why not a thousand other socialist wants and needs?
Within one to three generations of children educated in socialist-funded, single payer, compulsory government schools it was INEVITABLE that we would have:
**the IRS
**the federal reserve
**Unions
** the feminist movement
** One World movements in the form of the League of Nations and the abominable U.N.
** FDR and his New Deal ( four times!)
** Johnson's Great Society
** the abolishment of the gold standard.
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS MADE OBAMA INEVITABLE!!!!
The reverse is also true:
PRIVATE CONSERVATIVE K-12 schools that thoroughly integrate Judeo Christian values and our founding principles would MAKE FREEDOM INEVITABLE!!! ...in one to three generations!!!
If our nation's college classrooms were full to the brim with youth well prepared to defend their faith and our nation's founding principles, their Marxist professors would wither before their righteousness! Within one generation these youth would take their places in the media, the arts, the universities, business, and government.
If we started now we could see significant change in 10 short years!!! In two to three generations we would **WIN** the culture war and the fight against Marxism.
I am very distressed that so few conservatives see the danger of government schooling to our very existence as a nation.
**MARXISM IS OUR NATION'S MOST SERIOUS THREAT! GOVERNMENT K-12 SCHOOLS ARE THE MARXISTS’ MOST POWERFUL WEAPON!!
Too few conservatives even recognize that government schools are our enemy. Of those that do, too many believe that socialist, single payer, government schools can be reformed. They can't! It is impossible to reform socialism! Simply by attending children learn to be comfortable with accepting socialism!
( Yes, I am shouting! When will conservatives “get it”?)
Correcting “what the school teaches wrong” is far, far, far, MORE work that simply doing it right the first time.
Please think about this.
It means reading all the textbooks, reviewing every day with the child, reviewing all assignments, keeping up with the assemblies and after school programs, reading all or most books and essays assigned for literature. Even textbooks that you would think would be neutral are NOT! ( For example math and science textbooks).
If a parent **really** does a proper job of correcting what goes on in the government school it is practically a full-time job!
It is far easier and more predictable to:
1) homeschool
2) use a private school that you can trust.
Hoo-ray for our side!
I agree with that. Home schooled kids always seem to do far better then there counter parts. It’s well worth the time and effort to do that. Many can’t afford private school. And single mom’s can’t do home school.
Many do. It is worth attending a homeschool group meeting to find out how they manage.
You can see the results at the TEA page which I have provided a link for below. This has not yet gone far enough to the right...keep going. How about a mandated in depth study of the CONSTITUTION, BILL OF RIGHTS, AMENDMENTS, ECONOMICS (How you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken stuff and how those that work can’t and should not be obligated to support those who don’t and how some can only get something for nothing for only so long).
Texas education vote reflects far-right views [Liberal AP “news” writer can’t mask disappointment]
April (April Castro, writer of the article in the Minnesota Paper):
Too bad you are a product of public education sweetie. If you had a proper education you might know that the original intent of the founders was to provide competitive tension between the states. People get to vote with their feet and the feet of some conservatives may bring them to Texas instead of Minnesota.
As for Ms. Knight...she looks like another community organizer product of the Great Society. Just too damn bad she got miffed and walked out of the meeting.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3691
Texans can comment on the new standards before they are adopted in May.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=8235
James C. McKinley, Jr.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._McKinley,_Jr.
Jimmy:
Don’t let the door hit you in the A__ when you leave Texas. Trundle on back to New York and Cornell and whatever.
Quoting from the article, this is terrible (sic), [The changes] “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.”
Oh my, how awful! What will we do, what will we do?
Second, if you think the only way to educate your kids are through homeschool you are dead wrong. Here in Texas we do have schools that embrace traditional values, the teachers are not all wearing hitler mustaches and God is mentioned over the PA system.
The Pravda Media keeps dredging up "evolution" in this discussion about SOCIAL STUDIES coursework. It's not the SCIENCE curriculum.
Someone working for the State issued a statement last week calling Fox News a LIAR for pointing this out.
Also, I'm seeing liberal loons in Texas blaming this curriculum on Rick Perry "because these are his guys doing it!". They are elected, not selected.
I'm no fan of this just as I oppose all of the labor leaders and teaching of Marxism that they already have in the curriculum. Marx's name is listed in 3 different courses and does not appear in the same course as Joe McCarthy (neither is Stalin). That's a problem if they look at "McCarthyism" without exposing Communism and 100million dead in the 20th Century.
Stalinist lie. It's what makes political debate pointless.
It took Pete Seeger 40 years to admit that Joe Stalin had done some evil things. Human lives mean nothing to a committed Communist. Every bit as vile a Nazism.
The same people who deny any mention of God from our elected politicians also try to argue that execution meets the standard of “cruel and unusual punishment” except the death penalty has been around since that phrase was coined. Life in prison was considered cruel and an unfair burden on taxpayers.
The evolution issue is a red herring. I think one of the board members may believe in young Earth but few in Texas push that “science”.
What isn’t getting press is that man-made global warming is also pushed as established fact.
And on the concept of “creationism”, anyone who believes in a god has to either hold the view that God created everything or else “god(s)” evolved from the Big Bang as well and must be as dumbstruck by all the life on our planet as we are.
How can we teach theories about when life began when there is no discussion in biology class about WHEN a life begins in pregnancy?
You can try to deprogram your kids but some teachers these days play a subversive role trying to undermine parental authority.
I’ve seen articles (articles, not just postings) where teachers tell students “Your parents don’t know everything”, “Your parents are racist”, “Your parents are homophobic”, and “Your parents are wrong”. They do this on social issues and global warming.
They get them for 8 hours a day and have Hollyweird celebrities making indoctrination propaganda videos (on global warming, Howard Zinn’s refresher in AntiAmericanism, etc.).
Houston’s last Republican candidate for mayor was Cuban born Orlando Sanchez. He ran several times.
I know what you mean. I’m just glad I don’t have any little ones now. I’d be homeschooling if I did.
The fraud of Global Climate Change and the homosexual psychiatrists’ reclassifying homosexuality as normal point out the agendas within the “science” communities.
Yes, liberals’ mantra is “politicize everything”. And too many people let them.
Our local news affiliate had a 45 second news story on this last night. Having read about this curriculum change here on FR in the past week, I had an idea what the real story was about. However, the news story (on a FOX affiliate, no less) was told from the standpoint that the changes were to textbooks, making them less an authored piece of literature to an assembled book of components. They had a New York literature expert (ha) assessing why this was a bad thing.
Then at the literal end of the piece, the reporter stated that parents were concerned about these changes because the forces that were pushing for the new text books were Hispanics and Christian Conservatives.
By the way, there was not one mention of the content that was being included in the books.
That certainly won't happen in Plymouth-Canton Schools in Michigan which has just approved a new africanhyphenamerican history curriculum (written by a white woman--the curriculum that is). It will begin in the 1890s with Jim Crow and proceed to present times. Of course, there will be no mention of contributions of black people such as "The Real McCoy", the 54th Massachusetts, Frederick Douglas. It will be about a giant white guilt trip for the white children. Thank God my kids are thru with that part of their lives.
Yes, I think it is fair to teach about why we cherish our religious freedom (which is NOT freedom FROM religion, that makes Atheism the defacto faith of the State).
Point out how in Europe nations sometimes required the populace to adopt Catholicism or Protestantism depending of the latest monarch.
But don't just cast this into hundreds of years past of European history (we came to America to found a new principled nation).
Point out Communism's State imposed Atheism.
Point out Saudi Arabia's Islamic theocratic state and prohibition on all other religious texts.
Point out China's human rights violations on those of religious faith.
When people see the threats to that freedom ELSEWHERE IN THE MODERN WORLD, it drives the point home that all nations are NOT equal.
So it won’t go into the origins of the KKK and how it was established by Democrats?
I had to call the school board twice to get them to get the American Flag back up on the flag pole in front of one of the middle schools near my house. I had previously listened to the poverty speech when I called the middle school principal. I'm sure they'd rather the hammer and sickle or the cuban flag....and me in the gulag.
Academic bias is very real and others need to catch on
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/academicbias/index
One notable turn of events that is largely supressed in the media...
The State of California explicitly prohibits Communists and those preaching sedition against this government from teaching in California public schools and universities. Now we know that it isn’t fully enforced, but it is on the books.
There is a Democrat in California who wants to strike this from California law. There is no compelling reason to turn public students over to Communist indoctrination on the tax dollar. And it’s a Democrat pushing for access for Communist professors.
For the most part that is a great idea. The only problem I see with that, though, is Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. The libs love to use that one to push church-state separation beyond what it really meant.
If Thomas Paine was included there could be problems with The Age of Reason and Agrarian Justice, too. Paine attacked religion in the first and advocated a universal welfare payment paid from property taxes in the second.
As I said, it’s a great idea for the most part, but we need to be careful what we wish for sometimes.
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