Texas schools to get controversial US History Syllabus/Books

[Netto Azure]

Texas schools to get controversial syllabus​

Texas' decisions could influence curriculums across the US​

Education officials in the US state of Texas have adopted new guidelines to the school curriculum, which critics say will politicise teaching.

The changes include teaching that the UN could be a threat to American freedom, and that the Founding Fathers may not have intended a complete separation of church and state.
Critics say the changes are ideological and distort history.
However, proponents argue they are redressing a liberal bias in education.
Analysts say Texas, with five million schoolchildren, wields substantial influence on school curriculums across the US.
The BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani in Los Angeles says publishers of textbooks used nationally often print what Texas wants to teach.

Jefferson out

Students in Texas will now be taught the benefits of US free-market economics and how government taxation can harm economic progress.
They will study how American ideals benefit the world but organisations such as the UN could be a threat to personal freedom.
And Thomas Jefferson has been dropped from a list of enlightenment thinkers in the world-history curriculum, despite being one of the Founding Fathers who is credited with developing the idea that church and state should be separate.
The doctrine has become a cornerstone of US government, but some religious groups and some members of the Texas Education Board disagree, our correspondent says.
The board, which is dominated by Christian conservatives, voted nine-to-five in favour of adopting the new curriculum for both primary and secondary schools.
But during the discussions some of the most controversial ideas were dropped - including a proposal to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade".
Opponents of the changes worry that textbooks sold in other states will be written to comply with the new Texas standards, meaning that the alterations could have an impact on curriculums nationwide.

Well this was made known a few months ago and it seems it still got passed. But alas although History is subjective. There are some things we could agree to as fact, no?

Thoughts?

 

[Silver]

I definitely don't like where this could be headed, I see this as a way for republicans to try and eliminate some of the more important liberal ideals that were presented in US History. Plus

The changes include teaching that the UN could be a threat to American freedom

this seems like a downright conspiracy.

 

[Timbjerr]

As if I don't get ridiculed enough by people online that assume that just because I graduated from a Texas high school, my education is worth less than theirs. >_>

At least I can say I graduated before this bull passed. XD

 

[Aureol]

I see this as a double-edged sword of sorts. On the one hand, finally we have a state trying to eliminate the ridiculous liberal bias in government education. On the other hand, there are big opportunities for conservative bias. Being a libertarian, I'd prefer conservative bias to liberal bias, but I'd obviously rather history be left clean. Seriously, how hard is it to present history as it is? Especially swinging from absolutely no religious influence in the founding to complete religious influence... where's the accurate middle-ground?

EDIT: Nevermind, didn't notice the red text in the first post :D

 

[FreakyLocz14]

I see this as a double-edged sword of sorts. On the one hand, finally we have a state trying to eliminate the ridiculous liberal bias in government education. On the other hand, there are big opportunities for conservative bias. Being a libertarian, I'd prefer conservative bias to liberal bias, but I'd obviously rather history be left clean. Seriously, how hard is it to present history as it is? Especially swinging from absolutely no religious influence in the founding to complete religious influence... where's the accurate middle-ground?

EDIT: Nevermind, didn't notice the red text in the first post :D

History classes will never be the real history. They will always be taught from someone's point of view be it the textbook author's or the teacher's.

I see nothing wrong with this change. Changes in educational content change all the time and reflect the current politics of people holding power. This isn't anymore of a big deal than liberal bias.

 

[Spinor]

I live in Texas, but this isn't going to affect me because I don't pay attention in Social Studies subjects... well I do but when finals are over I throw most of what I learned away. State Curricula are only for our Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, our "big scary final-exam-like test from the state". Jeje, that easy piece of crap can kiss my... erm... yeah, ranting now.

And why are we still mentioning textbooks? Texas is going to get rid of those things in a matter of years. Which means if you come here without a laptop, you're dead... at least in most organized districts anyways. Sorry stereotypes!

 

[TRIFORCE89]

History classes will never be the real history. They will always be taught from someone's point of view be it the textbook author's or the teacher's.

I see nothing wrong with this change. Changes in educational content change all the time and reflect the current politics of people holding power. This isn't anymore of a big deal than liberal bias.

There's nothing wrong with downplaying the slave trade? Okay then. Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

And Jefferson was a republican. Why'd the right drop him like a rock?

 

[Esper]

Did no one ask if there really is a liberal bias? The liberal bias claim sounds like something that got said over and over again in the hopes that it would sound like a plausible reason to conservative-ize history books and not like the hollow excuse that it is.

As one of my professors told me once: "Facts are important things. There are probably only a million things in the world that are facts. Everything else is interpretation." While I don't know if 'America was firmly established under the idea of a separation of church and state' would count as one of those million facts, it certainly has more basis in history and reality than some modern day conservative's wish that the founding fathers had said 'America will be a Judeo-Christian society now and forever.'

 

[FreakyLocz14]

There's nothing wrong with downplaying the slave trade? Okay then. Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

And Jefferson was a republican. Why'd the right drop him like a rock?

There are some things wrong with all history cirriculum, I don't agree with it 100% but neither do I agree with liberal cirruculum 100%. The ideal history class is unbiased but that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

 

[Gary the Magic Fairy]

>Implying anything in those books is untrue

History is subjective. Simple as that. Just because it's now biased in a different direction as you doesn't give you the right to complain.

 

[Ivysaur]

I'm a supporter of keeping the education away from the temporary political leaders, since education plays a great role in the development of the children's mentality and a bias chosen by the (obviously) biased (in any way) political leaders may be definitive. When it comes down to History and Politics, I'd much rather show the kid both views.

You can't say that capitalism is better than communism unless you have throughly studied both. You can't say how Government taxation can harm economical progress because there are instances where that's fake. It's way too subjective.

But I can't really blame the Education Officials, after all. It's just natural for human beings to try to show the kids how great their views are.

 

[PokemonLeagueChamp]

UN is a threat. Holding futile meetings with communists and dictators in NYC is the stupidest thing we could've done.

The whole separation of church and state, I'd say you need minimal state involvement in order to make sure people aren't paying through the nose to go, illegal activities are not occurring, and so on. They do that with EVERYTHING else anyway.

Free market economies FTW. Finally, some level of common sense in SOME state's curriculum. Free market economy got us into being the top world power, both economicly and militarily. It's also the only way we'll stay that way.

American ideals? What's so controversial about American ideals? All our ideals can be condensed into 1 word: freedom. Is that a bad thing? I think not.

Personally, since liberalism dominates everything else, I think this is a good sign that at least children might not be indoctrinated from birth. I'd love that curriculum to be in my state. I'm in New York, one of the best showings of extreme leftism's results. Taxes are high, and going up, so people are quite literally leaving the state. That oughta prove at least that taxation is bad for economies, particularly when people would rather move out of state than pay their state's taxes.

 

[Ivysaur]

I'm in New York, one of the best showings of extreme leftism's results.

I'm sorry, but if you live in the US, you haven't seen any real left policies ever. So if you say that whatever has been done in NY is the work of "extreme leftists", I'd suggest you not to move to South America or Europe (or anywhere outside the US in general). You'd think the politicians there are worse than Stalin, and we just call them centre-left.

 

[TRIFORCE89]

There are some things wrong with all history cirriculum, I don't agree with it 100% but neither do I agree with liberal cirruculum 100%. The ideal history class is unbiased but that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

Maybe certain political leaders are played up more than others (Kennedy), but actual history isn't really subjective. It either happened or it didn't. Somebody did something or they didn't. These changes, to me, don't seem to far off from going into holocaust denial.

If you want to teach about Phyllis Schlafly (who, to me, seem totally obscure and totally unimportant to even learn about. At least in a grade school setting, anyway), why take out other figures in progress? Why not have both?

You need to learn about the National Rifle Association? Seriously? They're a lobby group. Why not learn about American Council of Life Insurers then? Like, c'mon. It's totally not important.

Teaching about the Blank Panthers alongside Dr. King is clearly an attempt to provoke and misrepresent. The Blank Panthers are not what the civil rights movement was about. It's like saying all Muslims are terrorists or all Christians are in the KKK.

 

[PokemonLeagueChamp]

I'm sorry, but if you live in the US, you haven't seen any real left policies ever. So if you say that whatever has been done in NY is the work of "extreme leftists", I'd suggest you not to move to South America or Europe (or anywhere outside the US in general). You'd think the politicians there are worse than Stalin, and we just call them centre-left.

TBH I wouldn't doubt that being the case. That's the problem. I mean, look at the bailout of Greece. I don't like that America's letting itself be dragged down via socialism with the EU's failure(and at this rate I do believe it will fail).

 

[Netto Azure]

TBH I wouldn't doubt that being the case. That's the problem. I mean, look at the bailout of Greece. I don't like that America's letting itself be dragged down via socialism with the EU's failure(and at this rate I do believe it will fail).

...And we here in the US didn't have out own "Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor" moment 2 years ago.

 

[FreakyLocz14]

Maybe certain political leaders are played up more than others (Kennedy), but actual history isn't really subjective. It either happened or it didn't. Somebody did something or they didn't. These changes, to me, don't seem to far off from going into holocaust denial.

If you want to teach about Phyllis Schlafly (who, to me, seem totally obscure and totally unimportant to even learn about. At least in a grade school setting, anyway), why take out other figures in progress? Why not have both?

You need to learn about the National Rifle Association? Seriously? They're a lobby group. Why not learn about American Council of Life Insurers then? Like, c'mon. It's totally not important.

Teaching about the Blank Panthers alongside Dr. King is clearly an attempt to provoke and misrepresent. The Blank Panthers are not what the civil rights movement was about. It's like saying all Muslims are terrorists or all Christians are in the KKK.

But like you said, history either happened or it didn't. The Black Panthers might not have represented the civil rights movement but they existed, so they are a part of history. Excluding them is also a denial of history. And no, the National Rifle Association is a civil rights group because they lobby for a constitutional right.

History itself is not subjective, let me rephrase my words. History classes are subjective. I had a history class where we had to watch Al Gore and Michael Moore films and an anti Fox News and Wal-Mart film. That is certainly biased.

We need to teach about Ronald Reagan just as much as we need to teach about Kennedy or Roosevelt. Reagan was a well-loved President. We also need to teach the fact that black civil rights was a product of the Republican Party and Jim Crow segregation (and also slavery) was a product of the Democratic Party.
Whenever someone wants to teach that the liberal media goes bananas but when they want to say that the New Deal was a success when in reality it was World War II that ended the Great Depression the media is okay with it.

 

[Masterge77]

I'v also heard rumors that Texas is breaking from the union.......

 

[Bela]

So on the subject of the Texas school board's actions, I feel this move is just one of many to come in the future where Conservatism is romanticized. Soon, aesthetic changes like putting Ronald Reagan on your money will gain traction, although that itself is no big deal (Put FDR on money too then!). The decision to remove Thomas Jefferson from the textbooks to me is a big mistake.

Reading this article, I feel there is a sense that the material taught in these books are designed to promote the growth of a new generation of Conservative thinking. With the removal of Jefferson and thus the notion of "separation of church and state," what will happen?

Texas textbooks will contain references to "laws of nature and nature's God" in passages that discuss major political ideas.

Clearly a view of the "combination of church and state" will be what children are taught to believe in.

Renaming the U.S. government form from "democratic" to a "constitutional republic" seems pretty insignificant at first, but is it possible that this is an effort to take away the connotation "democratic" (Democratic Party) may have, and instead replace this connotation with "constitutional republic" (Republican Party), the connotation being that what the form is named is the political party which should "rightfully" be in power?

I don't understand the voodoo that Conservatives use to make their decisions, but my guess is that the Texas school board's thinking is something along these lines.

 

[Rich Boy Rob]

Wait, does this mean that by not separating the church and education they will be teaching religious views as fact? If that's true then I don't know what to say. Children shouldn't be taught what to believe, they should decide that themselves later on.

As for them teaching that the UN might restrict US freedoms, that's just... bizarre. I mean I know history is "written by the victor", but that is a little too extreme.