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Old 05-22-2010, 12:31 AM   #1
Gish08
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Default It's official: Texas just set the US education system back 40 years

Quote:
Texas board adopts new social studies curriculum

By APRIL CASTRO – 1 hour ago

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas State Board of Education adopted a social studies and history curriculum Friday that amends or waters down the teaching of religious freedoms, America's relationship with the U.N. and hundreds of other items.

The new standards were adopted after a final showdown by two 9-5 votes along party lines, after Democrats' and moderate Republicans' efforts to delay a final vote failed.

In one of the most significant curriculum changes, the board dilutes the rationale for the separation of church and state in a high school government class, noting that the words were not in the Constitution and requiring students to compare and contrast the judicial language with the First Amendment's wording.

The ideological debate over the guidelines, which drew intense scrutiny beyond Texas, will be used to determine what important political events and figures some 4.8 million students will learn about for the next decade.

The standards
, which one Democrat called a "travesty," also will be used by textbook publishers who often develop materials for other states based on guidelines approved in Texas, although teachers in the Lone Star state have latitude in deciding how to teach the material.

The board attempted to make more than 200 amendments this week alone, reshaping draft standards that had been prepared over the last year and a half by expert groups of teachers and professors.

As new amendments were being presented just moments before the vote, Democrats bristled that the changes had not been vetted.

"I think we're doing an injustice to the children of this state by piecemealing together, cutting and pasting, coming up with new amendments as late as today," said Mary Helen Berlanga, a Democrat. "What we have done today and what we did yesterday is something that a classroom teacher would not even have accepted."

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.

Former board chairman Don McLeroy, one of the board's most outspoken conservatives, said the Texas history curriculum has been unfairly skewed to the left after years of Democrats controlling the board and he just wants to bring it back into balance.

"I'm proud to have my name on this document," Republican board member Barbara Cargill said shortly before the vote.

Another Republican board member, David Bradley, said the curriculum revision process has always been political — but this time, the ruling faction had changed since the last time social studies standards were adopted.

"We took our licks, we got outvoted," he said referring to the debate from 10 years earlier. "Now it's 10-5 in the other direction ... we're an elected body, this is a political process. Outside that, go find yourself a benevolent dictator."

GOP board member Geraldine Miller was absent during the votes.

Educators have blasted the curriculum proposals for politicizing education. Teachers also have said the document is too long and will force students to memorize lists of names rather than thinking critically.

The curriculum dispute contributed to McLeroy's defeat in the March state Republican primary.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said school officials "should keep politics out" of curriculum debates.

"We do a disservice to children when we shield them from the truth, just because some people think it is painful or doesn't fit with their particular views," Duncan said in a statement. "Parents should be very wary of politicians designing curriculum."

After the vote, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas urged the state Legislature to place more control over the board.

"At the end of three long days, the State Board of Education has amended, re-amended and approved curriculum standards that are more ideological than ever, despite pleas to not politicize what is taught to Texas school children,"
said the state ACLU's executive director, Terri Burke.

At least one lawmaker vowed legislative action to "rein in" the board.

"They have ignored historians and teachers, allowing ideological activists to push the culture war further into our classrooms," said Rep. Mike Villareal, a San Antonio Democrat. "They fail to understand that we don't want liberal textbooks or conservative textbooks. We want excellent textbooks, written by historians instead of activists."
The next generation is about to get brainwashed with a highly ideological, conservative bias in their textbooks. Texas sets standards for the rest of the nation when it comes to textbooks. California used to have just as much if not more influence, but because they are bankrupt, they aren't going to do anything for three years basically. This allowed Texas to solely rewrite the rules, which will not be interfered with for another ten years basically. These rules, as I said, will be felt around the nation. Because Texas is such a large state, textbook publishers have to often design their books around the state's curriculum.

It really is that simple.

Individual states should not have a say in how textbooks are written; there should be a national standard. This is a sad and scary day for the US. All those old conservative blowhards that are dying out are gonna be replaced by a generation of kids taught about the same shit, but even more refined and politicized. The changes will require kids to learn about the Contract with America and the NRA for fuck's sake, as though they are the foundation of this fucking country.

I am sick to my stomach.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 03:34 AM   #2
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Old 05-22-2010, 04:15 AM   #3
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People who thought that the state should have a monopoly over education are reaping what they've sown.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 04:59 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by jczeroman View Post
People who thought that the state should have a monopoly over education are reaping what they've sown.
did people in texas ever really get to choose whether or not they wanted that

Last edited by cocksure : 05-22-2010 at 09:36 AM.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 09:19 AM   #5
Order 66
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book learnin is what causes faggotism

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 11:27 AM   #6
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Originally Posted by jczeroman View Post
People who thought that the state should have a monopoly over education are reaping what they've sown.
Wrong direction.

Should be under federal control.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 12:46 PM   #7
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This is why the government should have no control over education (and likewise why no public funding should go to schools).

Charter schools, vouchers and education tax incentive credits ftw. Basically no one should be forced to go to a public school just because of where they live.

To the op though, teaching constituiton republic ideas is educationally correct. As is stating this country was founded on Christian ideals. Those are truths. That is correct history, emphasis on history.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 01:05 PM   #8
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Charter Schools fail at the same rate public schools do. There was a huge article in the NYT about it a few weeks ago talking about how celebrities throw money at the ones that are already succeeding in order to make it appear as though they're all wonderful and perfect.

What do you really think would happen if the government invested no money in public education? You cannot honestly think that that makes practical sense.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 01:13 PM   #9
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christian ideals

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 01:14 PM   #10
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Christian*

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 01:25 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by Eulogy View Post
Charter Schools fail at the same rate public schools do. There was a huge article in the NYT about it a few weeks ago talking about how celebrities throw money at the ones that are already succeeding in order to make it appear as though they're all wonderful and perfect.

What do you really think would happen if the government invested no money in public education? You cannot honestly think that that makes practical sense.
Private schools are by far the best educational method in the US ... And get no public tax money.

Charter schools are just another option - ETIC and vouchers are key. US public education is awful - insanely awful - and the govt just throws more money at it, like money has ever solved public education's horrific failures.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 03:21 PM   #12
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we're fucked anyway, who cares

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 04:43 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by Gish08 View Post
The next generation is about to get brainwashed with a highly ideological, conservative bias in their textbooks.
And textbooks weren't ever ideological or biased before? Let's not pretend that this move came out of the blue just because conservatives suddenly decided that indoctrination was a nifty idea that they hadn't tried. It's a pushback move against the way history curricula in this country have been presented for the past couple decades. I'm not saying it's a wise move, because clearly a great deal of it goes a lot farther than it needs to, but it didn't occur in a vacuum. I remember being taught a lot of bullshit, useless, and sometimes downright misleading stuff when I was in school that could definitely be said to have been due to liberal ideology and if nothing else took class time away from learning about major events and people. It's not surprising to me that there was an effort to swing things back, ill-conceived as it may be.

Quote:
Individual states should not have a say in how textbooks are written; there should be a national standard. This is a sad and scary day for the US. All those old conservative blowhards that are dying out are gonna be replaced by a generation of kids taught about the same shit, but even more refined and politicized. The changes will require kids to learn about the Contract with America and the NRA for fuck's sake, as though they are the foundation of this fucking country.

I am sick to my stomach.
I think it's interesting how you bolded the part in the article about kids having to contrast and compare the Constitution to the courts' language on separation of church and state issues. What's so wrong with showing kids the actual legal rationale for separation of church and state? What's wrong with placing a focus on primary documents? That's the essence of history education right there. And then you complain about kids learning about the NRA and the Contract with America...not complaining that they'll be featured in a positive light, but just that they'd be taught at all. Why not teach kids about these things? I'm not for teaching kids things that aren't true, but I don't think we should hide them from things or run things through some kind of filter either.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 04:44 PM   #14
Order 66
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I care. I don't want my kid to learn about Thomas Jefferson and grow up all fruity

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 05:18 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by sppunk View Post
To the op though, teaching constituiton republic ideas is educationally correct. As is stating this country was founded on Christian ideals. Those are truths. That is correct history, emphasis on history.
This country was founded on a mix of Christian, Deistic, Masonic, and Unitarian ideals. To state otherwise is foolish. Today, anyway. After a new generation of kids get brainwashed, maybe not.

It never has and never will (or never should be) referred to as a country that was founded on mostly Christian beliefs/ideals. Sorry.

Last edited by Gish08 : 05-22-2010 at 05:26 PM.

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 05:43 PM   #16
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btw, this is an important article. It shows you how crazy these people really are.

Say hello to the ideological trash that is now dictating that a skewed version of US History be taught to most of the nation's children:

Quote:
Don McLeroy is a balding, paunchy man with a thick broom-handle mustache who lives in a rambling two-story brick home in a suburb near Bryan, Texas. When he greeted me at the door one evening last October, he was clutching a thin paperback with the skeleton of a seahorse on its cover, a primer on natural selection penned by famed evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr. We sat down at his dining table, which was piled high with three-ring binders, and his wife, Nancy, brought us ice water in cut-crystal glasses with matching coasters. Then McLeroy cracked the book open. The margins were littered with stars, exclamation points, and hundreds of yellow Post-its that were brimming with notes scrawled in a microscopic hand. With childlike glee, McLeroy flipped through the pages and explained what he saw as the gaping holes in Darwin’s theory. “I don’t care what the educational political lobby and their allies on the left say,” he declared at one point. “Evolution is hooey.” This bled into a rant about American history. “The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation,” McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. “But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”
Quote:
Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy rather than leaving it up to the whims of local districts, which means publishers that get their books approved can count on millions of dollars in sales. As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers. As one senior industry executive told me, “Publishers will do whatever it takes to get on the Texas list.”

Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced to some degree by the more-liberal pull of California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.
Quote:
In late 2007, the English language arts writing teams, made up mostly of teachers and curriculum planners, turned in the drafts they had been laboring over for more than two years. The ultraconservatives argued that they were too light on basics like grammar and too heavy on reading comprehension and critical thinking. “This critical-thinking stuff is gobbledygook,” grumbled David Bradley, an insurance salesman with no college degree, who often acts as the faction’s enforcer. At the bloc’s urging, the board threw out the teams’ work and hired an outside consultant to craft new standards from scratch, but the faction still wasn’t satisfied; when the new drafts came in, one adherent dismissed them as “unreadable” and “mangled.”

Quote:
...few bloc members have been ousted in primaries, and even if moderates manage to peel off a few seats, by that time it will probably be too late. In mid-January [2010], the board will meet to hammer out the last details of the standards for social studies, the only remaining subject, and the final vote will be held in March, around the same time the first primary ballots are counted. This means that no matter what happens at the ballot box, the next generation of textbooks will likely bear the fingerprints of the board’s ultraconservatives—which is just fine with McLeroy. “Remember Superman?” he asked me, as we sat sipping ice water in his dining room. “The never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way? Well, that fight is still going on. There are people out there who want to replace truth with political correctness. Instead of the American way they want multiculturalism. We plan to fight back—and, when it comes to textbooks, we have the power to do it. Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.”

Article: Revisionaries - Mariah Blake
It's long, but if you care about this country at all, do yourself a favor and read it when you get time.

Also, some misc. disturbing info related to the new standards:

Quote:
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.
Quote:

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.”)
Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards - NYTimes.com

 
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Old 05-22-2010, 06:07 PM   #17
Order 66
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man came from jesus. If not then why we still got monkeys

 
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Old 05-23-2010, 10:09 AM   #18
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Originally Posted by sppunk View Post
Private schools are by far the best educational method in the US ... And get no public tax money.

Charter schools are just another option - ETIC and vouchers are key. US public education is awful - insanely awful - and the govt just throws more money at it, like money has ever solved public education's horrific failures.
This makes no sense - give us money but don't tell us what to do with it. What if the vast majority of the public WANTS to do something about it? Too bad?

 
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Old 05-23-2010, 11:18 AM   #19
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This is a great victory for our country. Libtards have been pushing the agenda of America being an evil country that owes everyone except whites an apology. You can see this as the main theme of Obama and his "presidency." Now school children will be able to hear actual history instead of revisionist lies and insignificance trumped up as major events.

 
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Old 05-23-2010, 01:03 PM   #20
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Getting too obvious, troll.

 
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Old 05-23-2010, 01:51 PM   #21
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I like how having a different point of view makes you a "troll"

 
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Old 05-23-2010, 01:53 PM   #22
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That goes to you too!

 
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Old 05-23-2010, 02:26 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by Eulogy View Post
Wrong direction.

Should be under federal control.
So that we can get a radical right-wing ideologue president and he can remove key educational material from ALL textbooks. Are you mad?

 
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Old 05-23-2010, 02:28 PM   #24
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Originally Posted by cocksure View Post
did people in texas ever really get to choose whether or not they wanted that
Yes and no. Technically (technically) they can elect people who would repeal a centralised Texas board of education and return power to counties, cities or even just local communities acting on their own to form their own standards.

Functionally, the state would never, ever copulate to that even it it were the overwhelming view of the people (which it never would be). So no.

 
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Old 05-23-2010, 06:12 PM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jczeroman View Post
Yes and no. Technically (technically) they can elect people who would repeal a centralised Texas board of education and return power to counties, cities or even just local communities acting on their own to form their own standards.

Functionally, the state would never, ever copulate to that even it it were the overwhelming view of the people (which it never would be). So no.
Uh, do you know what copulate means?

 
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Old 05-24-2010, 03:16 AM   #26
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Uh, do you know what copulate means?
Holy crap. Capitulate...

I'm leaving that in the original so everyone can see it though.

 
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Old 05-24-2010, 03:32 AM   #27
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i'm not surprised, this is texas we're talking about

 
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Old 05-24-2010, 05:28 AM   #28
Order 66
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it used to be a blue state :(

 
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Old 05-24-2010, 10:52 AM   #29
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Originally Posted by Order 66 View Post
I like how having a different point of view makes you a "troll"


Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke's Wall View Post
"presidency."



Uh, that does.

 
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Old 05-24-2010, 11:04 AM   #30
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Originally Posted by Order 66 View Post
it used to be a blue state :(
Speaking of which... Where Trots been at?

 
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