Thomas Jefferson kicked out of Texas schools

[Iason Ouabache]

http://tfninsider.org/2010/03/11/blogging-the-social-studies-debate-iv/

9:20 – The State Board of Education will resume debate and amending proposed new social studies curriculum standards for Texas public schools this morning. Board members are getting a short lesson on parliamentary procedure right now.

9:27 – The board is taking up remaining amendments on the high school world history course.

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.

9:40 – We're just picking ourselves up off the floor. The board's far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America's exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America's Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today.

9:45 – Here's the amendment Dunbar changed: "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present." Here's Dunbar's replacement standard, which passed: "explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau,  Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone." Not only does Dunbar's amendment completely change the thrust of the standard. It also appalling drops one of the most influential political philosophers in American history — Thomas Jefferson.

9:51 – Dunbar's amendment striking Jefferson passed with the votes of the board's far-right members and board member Geraldine "Tincy" Miller of Dallas.

[Doktor Howl]

 

ANOTHER TGRR PREDICTION COMES TRUE!

I'm glad the bastard's dead.  Nobody likes a smartass.

[Requia ☣]

Have I mentioned how much I hate it when you're right?   

[Iason Ouabache]

ANOTHER TGRR PREDICTION COMES TRUE!

I'm glad the bastard's dead.  Nobody likes a smartass.

Jefferson doesn't have the right values anymore, Dok.

[Cain]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TPMmuckraker/~3/7qV2io__vnc/conservative_bloc_dominates_latest_texas_textbooks.php

The 11-4 vote today on the latest draft of Texas' high school history standards comes as the story has blown up, attracting intense media coverage from national outlets including the New York Times and Fox News, which reported live from Austin all week.

"In all honesty, it was a debacle for public education," says Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal watchdog that tracks the board.

Here's a rundown of the highlights of the new draft standards, according to media reports and the Texas Freedom Network:

The board added a requirement that economics students "analyze the decline of the U.S. dollar including abandonment of the gold standard." Students must also learn about Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek, author of libertarian urtext The Road to Serfdom.

The famous clause requiring history students to "Describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association" remains in the standards, even after its author, Don McLeroy, lost his primary this month.

According to TFN: "the board stripped Thomas Jefferson from a world history standard about the influence of Enlightenment thinkers on political revolutions from the 1700s to today. In Jefferson's place, the board's religious conservatives succeeded in inserting Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. They also removed the reference to 'Enlightenment ideas' in the standard, requiring that students should simply learn about the influence of the 'writings' of various thinkers (including Calvin and Aquinas)."

A final vote, preceded by another public hearing and another chance to offer amendments, is scheduled for May.

This reads like a GOP written school cirriculum.  Srsly.

[Dimocritus]

There's no more room for great Americans in Americorp.

[Iason Ouabache]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TPMmuckraker/~3/7qV2io__vnc/conservative_bloc_dominates_latest_texas_textbooks.php

The 11-4 vote today on the latest draft of Texas' high school history standards comes as the story has blown up, attracting intense media coverage from national outlets including the New York Times and Fox News, which reported live from Austin all week.

"In all honesty, it was a debacle for public education," says Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal watchdog that tracks the board.

Here's a rundown of the highlights of the new draft standards, according to media reports and the Texas Freedom Network:

The board added a requirement that economics students "analyze the decline of the U.S. dollar including abandonment of the gold standard." Students must also learn about Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek, author of libertarian urtext The Road to Serfdom.

The famous clause requiring history students to "Describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association" remains in the standards, even after its author, Don McLeroy, lost his primary this month.

According to TFN: "the board stripped Thomas Jefferson from a world history standard about the influence of Enlightenment thinkers on political revolutions from the 1700s to today. In Jefferson's place, the board's religious conservatives succeeded in inserting Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. They also removed the reference to 'Enlightenment ideas' in the standard, requiring that students should simply learn about the influence of the 'writings' of various thinkers (including Calvin and Aquinas)."

A final vote, preceded by another public hearing and another chance to offer amendments, is scheduled for May.

This reads like a GOP written school curriculum.  Srsly.

It is, basically. Instead of bring in real educators and historians they brought in theocrat David Barton. This is the same board that was until recently led by dentist Don McLeroy who seriously said, "Someone needs to stand up to these experts." Texas is doooomed unless the legislature steps in and completely changes how their standards are decided.

[Zenpeanut]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253

The revised standards have far-reaching implications because Texas is a huge market leader  in the school-textbook industry. The enormous print run for Texas textbooks leaves most districts in other states adopting the same course materials, so that the Texas School Board effectively spells out requirements for 80 percent of the nation's textbook market. That means, for instance, that schools in left-leaning states like Oregon and Vermont could soon be teaching from textbooks that are short on references to Ted Kennedy  but long on references to conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Oh ho! Looks like Texas isn't the only one that gets a nice heaping of dumb. The dumb gets to spread all across the US unless schools hunt down the few unbiased (as unbiased as standard history books go) textbooks.

[E.O.T.]

THE PEACE CORPS

          builds us our labour camps

WHEN

          they think they're building schools

[Requia ☣]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253

The revised standards have far-reaching implications because Texas is a huge market leader  in the school-textbook industry. The enormous print run for Texas textbooks leaves most districts in other states adopting the same course materials, so that the Texas School Board effectively spells out requirements for 80 percent of the nation's textbook market. That means, for instance, that schools in left-leaning states like Oregon and Vermont could soon be teaching from textbooks that are short on references to Ted Kennedy  but long on references to conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Oh ho! Looks like Texas isn't the only one that gets a nice heaping of dumb. The dumb gets to spread all across the US unless schools hunt down the few unbiased (as unbiased as standard history books go) textbooks.

Pft, like that would ever happen.  They aren't even *allowed* to pick schoolbooks here, it has to go through the politicians, which means only the textbook lobbyists have any say what textbooks get used.  (which is, inevitably, whatever costs most)

[Doktor Howl]

ANOTHER TGRR PREDICTION COMES TRUE!

I'm glad the bastard's dead.  Nobody likes a smartass.

Jefferson doesn't have the right values anymore, Dok.

Jefferson never did have the right values, Iason.  I mean, seriously:

I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

We have to kill Jefferson, Iason.  For the children.

[Iason Ouabache]

Whoa. Awesome quote.That whole letter is kick ass: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/jefferson_adams.html

I can see why the fundies hate him so much. Just imagine what would happen if a child accidentally read something like that! The horror!!!

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I was listening to a discussion about this on NPR while hauling around large amounts of cash to various banks and I heard some guy saying something like "Well there's a liberal slant in the history books blah blah blah..." and I got mad enough to shout at myself in the car for a couple seconds.  Including Thomas Jefferson is liberal?!  Then I realized that, to him, everything must have a liberal slant, much like when you stand on the north pole every direction is south.  What a strange and terrifying world he must live in.  I'd feel more sympathetic except he's fucking up the educational system even more than it already is. 

[Doktor Howl]

I was listening to a discussion about this on NPR while hauling around large amounts of cash to various banks and I heard some guy saying something like "Well there's a liberal slant in the history books blah blah blah..." and I got mad enough to shout at myself in the car for a couple seconds.  Including Thomas Jefferson is liberal?!  Then I realized that, to him, everything must have a liberal slant, much like when you stand on the north pole every direction is south.  What a strange and terrifying world he must live in.  I'd feel more sympathetic except he's fucking up the educational system even more than it already is. 

Actually, Jefferson was the very definition of the classic liberal.

Tards like the one you describe are against everything Jefferson believed in.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

You have a point.  I guess it's just that around here the conservatives worship The Founding Fathers. And worship is exactly the right word.  I need  to find a picture of that statue with George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson kneeling in prayer over a copy of the Constitution...