After years of trying and failing to inject creationism into the science curriculum, conservative members of the Texas Board of Education have found another way to promote their agenda. The recently revised social studies syllabus (history, government and economics) of Texas schools now will reflect a clear slant toward right wing conservative views of America's past, present and future. If one believes that what students learn in school does not matter much then the revisions are not noteworthy. However, the changes are being widely viewed as an ideological attempt to influence young minds through distortion, omission and promotion of selected facts. The story has made quite a splash in the news media. (see the reports in the Houston Chronicle and in the NYT)
Although my own children did not attend Texas schools, for many years I have watched with some amusement and considerable consternation the ridiculous attempts by some Texas Republicans to push their religious and political views on school children. The chairman of the board, Don McLeroy is a committed Christian creationist and most other Republicans on the board openly harbor similar views. McLeroy has thankfully been "unelected" but not before he has used his clout to do the harm he always wanted to do. The suspicion that the latest changes are a well orchestrated culture war is confirmed by the following statement of Rev. Peter Marshall, a Christian minister appointed as a reviewer by the conservative camp on the school board.
"We're in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it."
After several days of contentious bickering, the right wing members of the board, voting as a bloc, managed to get their way, thwarting the more moderate and liberal voices. This is some of what they managed to include or exclude.
_ Emphasize the Christian beliefs of the Founding Fathers and downplay their philosophical commitment to a secular approach to governance.
_ Thomas Jefferson has been ditched in favor of St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone, presumably because he was a proponent of the separation of church and state.
_ The US is to be referred to in the books as a "constitutional republic" as opposed to a "democratic republic."
_ Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president during the US Civil War gets equal time as Abraham Lincoln.
_ Include the role of the Black Panther organization in the civil rights movement in addition to the non-violent nature of MLK's leadership. The history of the Ku Klux Klan around the same time in the south has been jettisoned.
_ As originally intended, the Republican majority on the board did not succeed in dropping Thurgood Marshall from the list of worthy Americans. But they doggedly resisted efforts to include many Latino figures including the resident Tejanos who fought alongside Anglo soldiers at the Alamo. (Texas has a higher number of Latino residents than does California)
_ Republican stalwarts like Joseph McCarthy and Phyllis Schlafly (!!!) made the cut and are to be shown in a positive light while labor leader Cesar Chavez came close to getting the heave ho.
_ The role of the NRA in defending American freedom is to be taught to school children. I don't know if the ACLU gets a similar nod.
_ The word "capitalism" has been replaced throughout with the kinder gentler "free enterprise system. ( "Let's face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation," said one conservative member, Terri Leo. "You know, 'capitalist pig!'")
The proposals are now open to public comments for 30 days and if approved, the revised textbooks will be in the classrooms by the fall of 2011. The implications of the changes are worth pondering. It now seems likely that students in the state of Texas which has a very significant Latino and African American population, as also a large pool of immigrant Americans from all over the world, will be exposed to a social studies curriculum which is pointedly right wing Anglo-Christian. Due to its size, the business of text book publication in Texas is huge, so much so that many other states use the same books in their schools. So the effects of the change will be felt beyond Texas borders. Also, text book revisions here take place once every decade. The books will remain in place for ten years.
Actually, I am against unduly influencing young minds with any ideology. The left wing of the political spectrum has done its share of harm with its own agenda driven educational innovations. More important than foisting ideology on our children, we should focus on fashioning a curriculum that interests and challenges our students on all fronts of learning. A new educational initiative proposes to do just that. All US states, except Texas and Alaska have agreed to participate. Apparently, the two largest states, also known for their independent spirit, fear outside interference in deciding what their children should learn. (Perry-Palin ticket in 2016? ) So, it IS about ideology then and not excellence in education. The most disturbing paragraph in the New York Times report is this one:
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.
One amusing side show of past week's curriculum circus. During the early days of deliberation, two conservative busy-bodies on the board moved to ban the children's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? from the reading list. The offending book's author Bill Martin Jr shares a name with Bill Martin, a philosophy professor at De Paul University. Although the former is strictly a writer of children's books, Professor Martin recently published a "scary" book called Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation. That was enough for the red baiting ignoramuses to become confused and see red.
What do the authors of the children's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and a 2008 book called Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation have in common?
Both are named Bill Martin and, for now, neither is being added to Texas schoolbooks.
In its haste to sort out the state's social studies curriculum standards this month, the State Board of Education tossed children's author Martin, who died in 2004, from a proposal for the third-grade section. Board member Pat Hardy, R-Weatherford, who made the motion, cited books he had written for adults that contain "very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system."
Trouble is, the Bill Martin Jr. who wrote the Brown Bearseries never wrote anything political, unless you count a book that taught kids how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, his friends said. The book on Marxism was written by Bill Martin, a philosophy professor at DePaul University in Chicago.
I am hardly surprised or shocked that a reactionary bunch that connives to camouflage "capitalism" under the cheery sounding cloak of "free enterprise system" is apt to see a sinister communist / socialist plot lurking behind even a children's book. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? seems to be a lovely book. I would enjoy reading it out aloud to a three or four year old. Why did the school board consider it suitable reading material for the third grade? Now that is an outrage that all school board members should have been opposed to rather than hyperventilating about the possible political affiliations of its author, don't you think?
(Editorial Cartoon by Nick Anderson: click to enlarge)
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