He's done the damage, but it's by no means permanent. This is the umpteenth time the Religious Right has infiltrated a school board and tried to push Creationism and the like into the system, and it ends up never sticking because of the backlash. McElroy's primary defeat is the beginning of the end of this curriculum.Big Magilla wrote:Yes, but McElroy, who is an obvious crackpot, has already done his damage. The other nine Republicans on the board look normal but are just as nuts.Sonic Youth wrote:One thing these articles don't mention is that a week ago, sponser Don McLeroy was defeated in a primary election for the State Board of Education against a moderate Republican. And McLeroy was the incumbent, too.
Be afraid, be very afraid
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Sonic Youth
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"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
The reasoning for eliminating the term democracy may be suspect, but constitutional republic is the more accurate term for our type of government.Big Magilla wrote:Our type of government can no longer be referred to as a "democracy" because the word suggests "democrats". From now on it must be referred to as a "constitutional republic".
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Big Magilla
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Sonic Youth wrote:One thing these articles don't mention is that a week ago, sponser Don McLeroy was defeated in a primary election for the State Board of Education against a moderate Republican. And McLeroy was the incumbent, too.
Yes, but McElroy, who is an obvious crackpot, has already done his damage. The other nine Republicans on the board look normal but are just as nuts.
A couple of other things these articles don't mention:
Our type of government can no longer be referred to as a "democracy" because the word suggests "democrats". From now on it must be referred to as a "constitutional republic".
Ronald Reagan must be given as much print as Franklin Roosevelt. "Roosevelt expanded the role of government in our lives, Reagan limited it."
Edited By Big Magilla on 1268675028
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Sonic Youth
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Don't be afraid, don't be very afraid. Every time this happens, there is a strong pushback, mostly from other Republicans. Remember Kansas ten years ago? I see no reason why this won't happen again. (Non-specific reasons like "But this is Texas! They're crazy!" aren't good enough.)
One thing these articles don't mention is that a week ago, sponser Don McLeroy was defeated in a primary election for the State Board of Education against a moderate Republican. And McLeroy was the incumbent, too.
One thing these articles don't mention is that a week ago, sponser Don McLeroy was defeated in a primary election for the State Board of Education against a moderate Republican. And McLeroy was the incumbent, too.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
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Big Magilla
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PopMatters on the controversy:
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.
I am somewhat apathetic. It’s not as though the curriculum anywhere is objective and unbiased; the more neutral it claims to be, the more perniciously hidden the ideology is in practice. So with the situation in Texas, the bias (admittedly ridiculous) has been made more overt and easier to teach against if you a subversive teacher and are so inclined. This would have the laudable effect of illustrating for students how the can’t automatically trust official-looking books and must learn to read everything critically. And in those districts where the books are taught straight, well, what were those students going to learn in institutions anyway? High school is not about disseminating truth; it’s about indoctrination in the abiding mores of a community, as well as training people to be meek workers in the hierarchical systems they will encounter throughout life.
You can’t blame the Christians for wanting to Christianize the school systems they control. Once you accept that school are for ideological indoctrination, then it becomes a matter of who has the power to use the institutions to suit their aims. “Truth” is simply a tactical ruse to gain power for your ideology. The Texas Christians are right in thinking that a counter-ideology has been taught in schools, and are simply implementing the logic of power by wanting to substitute theirs for it. (It’s like what Lenin said, you look for the person who will benefit and um, um…) But they are merely relativizing what they probably hold as absolutely true by introducing it into the welter of democratic politics. One lesson people can take away from the school-board conflict is that Christian ideology is open to a vote, and that Christianity must build consensus in the same Machiavellian ways as politicians.
These efforts to control textbooks as though that will ensure control over the kids who pretend to read them and teachers who pretend to teach them seem sort of desperate, as though the books were to blame for the waning popularity and unreality of some of their views. To paraphrase Thomas Merton (and also a rebel princess from some movie), the more they tighten their ideological grip, the more students will slip through their fingers. I mean, they are dealing with people who say things like this:
“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said.
Yes. And historians—man, they have historical explanations for everything. And mathematicians, all they ever talk about is math. Where is the Scripture?
I suppose I am skeptical that people take textbooks as some sort of gospel, but that may be because I have always had autodidactic tendencies and figured that what was in textbooks was pabulum for indifferent students and fodder for rebellion for anyone else who was engaged.
The ideological takeover is a classic enhance-the-contradictions moment; it’s so blatant an effort that it makes the underlying problems self-evident. The heavy-handed efforts to safeguard hegemony exposes how frail it has become. This sort of inanity should prompt sane people to withdrawal from the system altogether if they can, or at least put in place local forms of resistance to the tyranny. It calls the phony objectivity of schools to everyone’s attention, including those who ordinarily wouldn’t give a shit.
Anyway, some of these proposals don’t strike me as all that outrageous.
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.”
The double-talk about capitalism is pretty dumb, but kids should be taught about the sort of neoliberalism that has actually shaped policy for the past few decades. They should understand Hayek’s idea about the market as a system for conveying information. They should understand Friedman’s conflation of liberty with economic freedom of choice. At that point you can constructively critique these ideas, or reject them as part of institutional learning. If teachers were suddenly mandated to teach Frankfurt school theory in high schools, then those ideas would truly be dead.
—Rob Horning
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.
I am somewhat apathetic. It’s not as though the curriculum anywhere is objective and unbiased; the more neutral it claims to be, the more perniciously hidden the ideology is in practice. So with the situation in Texas, the bias (admittedly ridiculous) has been made more overt and easier to teach against if you a subversive teacher and are so inclined. This would have the laudable effect of illustrating for students how the can’t automatically trust official-looking books and must learn to read everything critically. And in those districts where the books are taught straight, well, what were those students going to learn in institutions anyway? High school is not about disseminating truth; it’s about indoctrination in the abiding mores of a community, as well as training people to be meek workers in the hierarchical systems they will encounter throughout life.
You can’t blame the Christians for wanting to Christianize the school systems they control. Once you accept that school are for ideological indoctrination, then it becomes a matter of who has the power to use the institutions to suit their aims. “Truth” is simply a tactical ruse to gain power for your ideology. The Texas Christians are right in thinking that a counter-ideology has been taught in schools, and are simply implementing the logic of power by wanting to substitute theirs for it. (It’s like what Lenin said, you look for the person who will benefit and um, um…) But they are merely relativizing what they probably hold as absolutely true by introducing it into the welter of democratic politics. One lesson people can take away from the school-board conflict is that Christian ideology is open to a vote, and that Christianity must build consensus in the same Machiavellian ways as politicians.
These efforts to control textbooks as though that will ensure control over the kids who pretend to read them and teachers who pretend to teach them seem sort of desperate, as though the books were to blame for the waning popularity and unreality of some of their views. To paraphrase Thomas Merton (and also a rebel princess from some movie), the more they tighten their ideological grip, the more students will slip through their fingers. I mean, they are dealing with people who say things like this:
“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said.
Yes. And historians—man, they have historical explanations for everything. And mathematicians, all they ever talk about is math. Where is the Scripture?
I suppose I am skeptical that people take textbooks as some sort of gospel, but that may be because I have always had autodidactic tendencies and figured that what was in textbooks was pabulum for indifferent students and fodder for rebellion for anyone else who was engaged.
The ideological takeover is a classic enhance-the-contradictions moment; it’s so blatant an effort that it makes the underlying problems self-evident. The heavy-handed efforts to safeguard hegemony exposes how frail it has become. This sort of inanity should prompt sane people to withdrawal from the system altogether if they can, or at least put in place local forms of resistance to the tyranny. It calls the phony objectivity of schools to everyone’s attention, including those who ordinarily wouldn’t give a shit.
Anyway, some of these proposals don’t strike me as all that outrageous.
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.”
The double-talk about capitalism is pretty dumb, but kids should be taught about the sort of neoliberalism that has actually shaped policy for the past few decades. They should understand Hayek’s idea about the market as a system for conveying information. They should understand Friedman’s conflation of liberty with economic freedom of choice. At that point you can constructively critique these ideas, or reject them as part of institutional learning. If teachers were suddenly mandated to teach Frankfurt school theory in high schools, then those ideas would truly be dead.
—Rob Horning
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Big Magilla
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Texas Textbook Changes Stir Controversy
Updated: Thursday, 11 Mar 2010, 12:31 PM EST
Published : Sunday, 07 Mar 2010, 6:00 PM EST
Edited by Steve Dixon
ATLANTA - The Texas Board of Education plan to change its social studies curriculum -- and changing its textbooks to reflect the new curriculum has some groups up in arms.
According to one news report, some on the board "seem to have concluded that Texas' classrooms have been infected with a liberal bias." Thus, some want to include more conservative ideas in order to balance the standards.
Board member Don McLeroy -- in the same report is said to be the sponsor of the proposed changes. McLeroy is quoted as saying in a statement that the current "standards are rife with leftist political periods and events: the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society. Including material about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s provides some political balance to the document."
Just what are some of the changes? In documents posted on the Texas Education Agency Website , 2nd graders would no longer have to learn about Henrietta C. King and Florence Nightengale, added is Abigail Adams. In the proposed curriculum changes for U.S. History Since 1877, out goes Susan B. Anthony and Shirley Chisholm and in comes Phyllis Schlafly.
The changes -- if approved -- will affect grades K-8 in all schools in the state. It is not clear if grades 9 -12 will also be impacted. School books in U.S. history, world history, U.S. government, economics, psychology, and sociology would have to be re-written to reflect the new changes.
Many groups -- from humanist to religious to ethnic -- have jumped in with their opinions on the issue.
Texas is said to be one of the largest purchasers of textbooks in the nation. Textbook publishers will have to follow Texas guidelines if they wish to continue to sell textbooks in Texas.
What impact the changes -- if adopted -- may have on other states is not known.
A vote on the proposed changes is due in May.
Updated: Thursday, 11 Mar 2010, 12:31 PM EST
Published : Sunday, 07 Mar 2010, 6:00 PM EST
Edited by Steve Dixon
ATLANTA - The Texas Board of Education plan to change its social studies curriculum -- and changing its textbooks to reflect the new curriculum has some groups up in arms.
According to one news report, some on the board "seem to have concluded that Texas' classrooms have been infected with a liberal bias." Thus, some want to include more conservative ideas in order to balance the standards.
Board member Don McLeroy -- in the same report is said to be the sponsor of the proposed changes. McLeroy is quoted as saying in a statement that the current "standards are rife with leftist political periods and events: the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society. Including material about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s provides some political balance to the document."
Just what are some of the changes? In documents posted on the Texas Education Agency Website , 2nd graders would no longer have to learn about Henrietta C. King and Florence Nightengale, added is Abigail Adams. In the proposed curriculum changes for U.S. History Since 1877, out goes Susan B. Anthony and Shirley Chisholm and in comes Phyllis Schlafly.
The changes -- if approved -- will affect grades K-8 in all schools in the state. It is not clear if grades 9 -12 will also be impacted. School books in U.S. history, world history, U.S. government, economics, psychology, and sociology would have to be re-written to reflect the new changes.
Many groups -- from humanist to religious to ethnic -- have jumped in with their opinions on the issue.
Texas is said to be one of the largest purchasers of textbooks in the nation. Textbook publishers will have to follow Texas guidelines if they wish to continue to sell textbooks in Texas.
What impact the changes -- if adopted -- may have on other states is not known.
A vote on the proposed changes is due in May.
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Big Magilla
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(Jan. 19) – "History is written by the victors," Winston Churchill famously said. In Texas, that may mean removing mention of Ted Kennedy and Cesar Chavez from textbooks in favor of new entries on the National Rifle Association and Phyllis Schlafly.
For much of the past year, the Texas State Board of Education has been considering changes to its social studies curriculum, hearing from community members and debating alterations to the way the state will teach history.
Gail Lowe
Jack Plunkett, AP
"I don't see any evidence that people are pursuing any political or personal agendas," Gail Lowe, the chair of the Texas State Board of Education, told The Daily Texan newspaper.
Many on the board, which is made up of 10 Republicans and five Democrats, seem to have concluded that Texas' classrooms have been infected with a liberal bias. As a result, the board has spent numerous hours hearing from members of the community on subjects such as whether labor activist Chavez and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall deserve space in history textbooks alongside founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin.
Also at issue is whether Christianity deserves more classroom time in the Lone Star State, and whether Abraham Lincoln deserves so much.
Last week, the board voted 7-6 to make some changes, so that the state standards will mandate that lessons include the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including anti-feminism advocate Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.
It wasn't clear which grades would be affected.
In a written statement, the measure's sponsor, board member Don McLeroy, explained why he believes the current textbooks are unacceptable and needed revising.
"These standards are rife with leftist political periods and events: the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society," McLeroy wrote. "Including material about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s provides some political balance to the document."
McLeroy also succeeded in making changes to how Sen. Joseph McCarthy will be taught, painting the man – whose use of Congress to investigate alleged communist behavior in the 1950s has been widely repudiated – in a more favorable light.
The board's preliminary vote has met with some opposition.
"When partisan politicians take a wrecking ball to the work of teachers and scholars, you get a document that looks more like a party platform than a social studies curriculum," Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, a group that monitors public education in the state, told the Houston Chronicle.
The final vote on the new standards will be held in May. There are 4 million children in the Texas public school system, making it the second-largest market for textbooks in the country. As a result, changes to the Texas curriculum are likely to impact other states as well.
For much of the past year, the Texas State Board of Education has been considering changes to its social studies curriculum, hearing from community members and debating alterations to the way the state will teach history.
Gail Lowe
Jack Plunkett, AP
"I don't see any evidence that people are pursuing any political or personal agendas," Gail Lowe, the chair of the Texas State Board of Education, told The Daily Texan newspaper.
Many on the board, which is made up of 10 Republicans and five Democrats, seem to have concluded that Texas' classrooms have been infected with a liberal bias. As a result, the board has spent numerous hours hearing from members of the community on subjects such as whether labor activist Chavez and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall deserve space in history textbooks alongside founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin.
Also at issue is whether Christianity deserves more classroom time in the Lone Star State, and whether Abraham Lincoln deserves so much.
Last week, the board voted 7-6 to make some changes, so that the state standards will mandate that lessons include the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including anti-feminism advocate Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.
It wasn't clear which grades would be affected.
In a written statement, the measure's sponsor, board member Don McLeroy, explained why he believes the current textbooks are unacceptable and needed revising.
"These standards are rife with leftist political periods and events: the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society," McLeroy wrote. "Including material about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s provides some political balance to the document."
McLeroy also succeeded in making changes to how Sen. Joseph McCarthy will be taught, painting the man – whose use of Congress to investigate alleged communist behavior in the 1950s has been widely repudiated – in a more favorable light.
The board's preliminary vote has met with some opposition.
"When partisan politicians take a wrecking ball to the work of teachers and scholars, you get a document that looks more like a party platform than a social studies curriculum," Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, a group that monitors public education in the state, told the Houston Chronicle.
The final vote on the new standards will be held in May. There are 4 million children in the Texas public school system, making it the second-largest market for textbooks in the country. As a result, changes to the Texas curriculum are likely to impact other states as well.