Fear and loathing in the Texas Board of Education’s Friday debate UPDATED
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This is pretty hot, folks: The conservative-dominated Texas Board of Education has finished a lengthy debate of public school social studies standards, and the results are eye popping.
- Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightenment are out.
- Gun rights will be part of students’ discussions of the FIRST Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
- They squelched an attempt to teach students about the founding fathers’ effort to separate church and state.
- Any mention of the Ku Klux Klan in Texas is out.
When it was over, according to The Houston Chronicle, one of the liberal board members condemned the standards the board had adopted:
“We are perpetrating a fraud on the students of this state,” said Mavis Knight, D-Dallas.
There’s a great deal of blogging going on of some bizarre board discussions that are hard to believe. (h/t to Scott Mange)
Journalist and blogger Ed Brayton has the details. The juicy bits are below:
Friday morning, one of the more conservative board members prevailed in removing studies of Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightenment from the state’s world history history standards:
9:30 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas (replacing with “the writings of”) and to Thomas Jefferson. She adds Thomas Aquinas and others. Jefferson’s ideas, she argues, were based on other political philosophers listed in the standards. We don’t buy her argument at all. Board member Bob Craig of Lubbock points out that the curriculum writers clearly wanted to students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson. Could Dunbar’s problem be that Jefferson was a Deist? The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards.
Shortly before noon, another board member insisted the standards regarding the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution include a discussion of the right to bear arms, which is in the Second Amendment (already the standards require study of the full Bill of Rights).
11:33 – Bob Craig tries, once again, to talk some sense into these folks. Board member Cynthia Dunbar argues that the original standard’s focus on the rights of “petition, assembly, speech, and press in a democratic society” unfairly emphasizes the First Amendment over others. She suggests taking that out altogether if the Second Amendment isn’t included. Board member Ken Mercer argues that the right to bear arms is too important not to include here. But it IS included in the standards. The purpose of the original standard is to have students understand the rights to free expression in a democratic society. The right to bear arms is not relevant to that purpose.
So now the standards on studying the First Amendment now include discussions of the right to bear arms. But wait. It gets EVEN BETTER. A less-conservative board member suggested they include a standard studying the founding fathers’ views on religious freedom:
12:28 – Board member Mavis Knight . . . points out that students should understand that the Founders believed religious freedom was so important that they insisted on separation of church and state.
12:32 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar argues that the Founders didn’t intend for separation of church and state in America. And she’s off on a long lecture about why the Founders intended to promote religion. She calls this amendment “not historically accurate.”
12:38 – Let the word go out here: The Texas State Board of Education today refused to require that students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others. They voted to lie to students by omission.
This last motion failed on a 5-10 vote, with 10 conservatives voting against it.
Why is this important to Virginia? It’s because, as the commentor Ron points out below, standards of large state such as Texas pretty much dictate what’s going to wind up in textbooks across the country.
Coming to Virginia soon, sigh. But don’t worry too much. The state probably won’t have enough money to buy those books!
(The top and bottom of this blog post have been updated to for the purposes of summarizing the changes, explaining their impact, and adding a link to The Houston Chronicle story)
March 12, 2010 - 6:53 PM
Astounding. And depressing.
Coming to you live, from Texas…it’s a flat earth!
God help us.
This impacts more than just the students in Texas because of the size of its textbook market. Publishers typically dont’ publish different textbooks for different states. Look for those textbooks in Virginia high schools soon.
Where are your black rights here .The guy raped and impregnated captive slaves..If he did it today.hed be imprisoned for life..and Jefferson was a diest..that means he believed that God created but did not micromanage earthly beings..nothing wrong with that..but not your……US was founded on Christianity plane..
Ya got that right, Kristen. That’s Texas for ya.
Heaven forbid anyone be enlightened. That public Board of Education sounds more like a private school board.
Allow me, Mr. Casey, to post the HuffPost link to a retired educator’s open letter to the Texas BOE….He speaks for me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-schneider/an-open-letter-to-the-tex_b_497695.html
What can you say about Texas these days? For a while, I thought South Carolina might have become the center of religious politics, but I should never have doubted the Texas School Board could salvage and claim that distinction.
Here’s something to think about though. I assume that most people who read this blog now know more about social studies standards in the the great State o’ Texas than they do in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Seriously, how many of you people have ever read OUR state standards. Frankly, I’ve always been a bit surprised that our standards haven’t been more politicized. After all, you don’t have to channel surf too long to see some pretty influential fundamentalists who make their homes in the Old Dominion. It’s interesting though. A lot of the work that goes into the Standards of Learning is done in the James Monroe building and from any number of office windows one can look down into an indistinct parking lot. Adjacent to the lot is a historical marker and on a brick wall close by one can read these words:
“The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was passed by the Virginia General Assembly on January 16, 1786. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, shepherded by James Madison, it remains one of the beacons of human liberty. It is the precursor of the First Amendment to the Constitution. On the two hundredth anniversary of the Statute, this tablet is presented to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia by the citizens to commemorate the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, no shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. ”
The difference between Texas and Virginia is that our founding father’s ideas are still honored for their wisdom, while in Texas the ideas are twisted to promote the narrow agenda of a particular religious majority.
Back to my original point. Here’s a link to our standards. It’s one thing to criticize Texas, but it sure would be nice if our citizens were well acquainted with what we require of our own.
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/index.shtml
How in blazes do idiots like that get onto boards? And how then do they not get called out publicly for being the morons they are? Frankly, Texas needs a wall all right, but it ought to go around the whole state, not just its southern border!
It’s probably too late to get Mexico to take Texas back. We could trade it for a nice island like Cozumel maybe…we’d at least get a nice tropical vacation spot out of it.
The McDonnell Administration — Better Than the Second Coming!
Excuse me, but Texas doesn’t have a monopoly on loons. Just look at last week’s flap over being a gay state employee at a state university and how wrong that is in the eyes of our Attorney General. How about the delegate from Northern Virginia (can’t remember his name right now) who keeps trying to enforce his ultra-conservative views on the whole Commonwealth via restrictive laws (he fought hard against state college health centers offering the “morning after” pill for one thing). Guv Bob opened interstate rest areas one day, then came out the next and slashed funding from education and programs for the poor, following that with heavy support for charter schools that will teach things the “right way” with state funds. Then we have our own Morgan Griffith. And Virginians elected them all.
JoeHokie, no one doubts that VA has its own idiots. They already have lots of threads. Maybe our jumping on Texas is just a “misery loves company” impulse.
Saintbridge, good idea on the wall.
@12 Joe Hokie, on the morning after pill thing, you’re thinking of Bob Marshall, who seems to be obsessed with anything involving sex. Of course he’s a hard-core, right-wing Republican conservative. A lot like Kenny C.
Hey
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Hope to know more member here.