Our view on education: Texas school board seeks to rewrite your kids' textbooks
"Jefferson Davis — Mississippi cotton planter, president of the Confederacy and stout defender of slavery — might be a historical footnote to most Americans, but he's about to get a politically inspired boost. A determined majority of the Texas Board of Education is preparing to require that Texas students be taught about Davis, and his discredited view of states' rights, alongside Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.
OPPOSING VIEW: Teach founding principles
Within a few days, that and hundreds of other proposed changes in standards for teaching social studies in Texas schools, many with a similar ideological bent, are to be formally posted in Austin for public comment. With a 2-1 board majority already behind the changes, most if not all are expected to be adopted at its next meeting, in May.
Because of Texas' massive presence in the textbook market nationwide, the state board's idiosyncratic view of history is likely to show up in what's taught in schools across the USA for the next decade.
Among the other changes in the current draft: Downgrading the place of Thomas Jefferson among the Founders because of board members' dislike of his support for separation of church"
OPPOSING VIEW: Teach founding principles
Within a few days, that and hundreds of other proposed changes in standards for teaching social studies in Texas schools, many with a similar ideological bent, are to be formally posted in Austin for public comment. With a 2-1 board majority already behind the changes, most if not all are expected to be adopted at its next meeting, in May.
Because of Texas' massive presence in the textbook market nationwide, the state board's idiosyncratic view of history is likely to show up in what's taught in schools across the USA for the next decade.
Among the other changes in the current draft: Downgrading the place of Thomas Jefferson among the Founders because of board members' dislike of his support for separation of church"