History's first draft: Newt Gingrich but no liberals

Source: Houston Chronicle

History's first draft: Newt Gingrich but no liberals
Textbooks being written for Texas students appear to lean to the right
By GARY SCHARRER
AUSTIN BUREAU
Aug. 20, 2009, 11:19PM

AUSTIN — Texas high school students would learn about such significant individuals and milestones of conservative politics as Newt Gingrich and the rise of the Moral Majority — but nothing about liberals — under the first draft of new standards for public school history textbooks.

And the side that got left out is very unhappy.

As it stands, students would get “one-sided, right wing ideology,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, chairman of the House Mexican American Caucus.

“We ought to be focusing on historical significance and historical figures. It's important that whatever course they take, that it portray a complete view of our history and not a jaded view to suit one's partisan agenda or one's partisan philosophy,” he said.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6581189.html

About sums it up. But then, those they are trying to indoctrinate have to know how to read.

i highly doubt that they would leave out any american president- and especially fdr- because of the huge role he played in shaping 20th century america.

:eyes:

These assholes are really pushing us past the limit!

ETA:

"Another board conservative, Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, thinks students should study both sides to “see what the differences are and be able to define those differences.”
He would add James Dobson's Focus on the Family, conservative talk show host Sean Hannity and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to the list of conservatives. Others have proposed adding talk show host Rush Limbaugh and the National Rifle Association."

They can't be serious with this crap.

I live in Arkansas and that's scary enough.

And they intend to feed this crap to Texas kids.

outside of Texas? They will have alot of work to do to catch up. Of course if they stay in Texas, all the stupid can be contained.

........can you imagine what Texas would be like in twenty years???

Remember, folks, Nineteen Eighty-Four is NOT an instruction manual.

This the BASE of the Republican National Platform.

But they don't care if they're enslaved, as long as it's not the gov't enslaving them!

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Sigh.

Instead of seceding themselves,
get the rest of us
to want them out of the Union!
:think: Brilliant! :think:

Ever!

You're stuck with us. You will even get all of our electoral votes as we turn blue, or did you ignore that little tidbit happening "down here"?

Texas would secede and take in ALL the stupidity of the Right as they did so! Build a fence around the whole dammed country, make it really tough to get a passpot to the USA, rigorously control what goes in and out of their nation and jam their broadcasts wherever they reach across borders.

move all of its big agencies and other installations out of our state. Or would you rather we keep the Johnson Space Center, Lackland AFB, Pantex, Fort Hood, the Federal Reserve Banks in Dallas and Houston, and so on...?

I think y'all would find the federal government would fight to keep us in the union, if you would simply use your "superior intellect" and think about the hassles for once :eyes:

All those agencies/establishments you mention could all be moved out of the Lone Brain Cell State. I'm not suggesting an armed conflict of a secession - just Texans making a decision to live apart from the USA. Bibles, guns, no-tax living being made the laws of the new land! Run all the illegals out so's every honest-ta-god "Texan" has a job - no matter how little it might pay.

Really this 'Texas tough guy thing' should be dismissed completely and their fear of facts should be thrust into the national spotlight.

They are not 'rugged individualists'

They are not 'brave pioneers'

They are not 'independent rough and tough sorts'

They are not 'freedom loving cowboys'


They are a bunch of bed-wetting, facist loving, fact fearing, self important, ignorant wannabes that know as much about farming as they do about particle physics.

Cut them off. I garauntee that Texas sucks a lot more federal money than it pays in. So Cut. Them. Off. Let them have their Rethuglican Conservo-somalia land of no taxes, no education, no infrastructure, and then we can see how many people flock to Bible-land.

Or brains.

Rice University
The University of Texas
UTMB (UT Medical Branch at the Texas Medical Center)
Texas A&M University
University of Houston

You might want to look at the research centers associated with all of the above and honestly ask yourself if the rest of the country would be truly better off without us.


(if you don't like the wiki links, the university pages should be in their sources)

And where would these institutions be without federal funding.

Almost every state in the union has public universities of varying capacities and strengths. I am quite certain that the facilities can be reproduced and the staff can be absorbed by other institutions.

My posting was obviously hyperbole and you would be silly if you didn't recognize it as such.

Donate to people and organizations who are trying to fight this battle, and tell your friends to do so as well. There are a few people running for State Board of Education. Unfortunately the districts have been gerrymandered (e.g., Travis Co, which would be a huge voting block against this type of stuff, was split in two to dilute its voting power).

Also support Texas legislators who are trying to change the State Board.

I can provide a list of those persons if anyone would like them.

It's unfortunate that no one answered it seriously the first time.

I thought that all of the Confederate States were conservative ...

I remember a newscast (probably NPR) about Texas textbooks in general influencing those in every state. I can't find that particular one, but the following story about science textbooks (yeah, I know it's Faux) says essentially the same thing. (Bolding is mine):

"The significance of the Texas ruling could impact textbooks nationwide.

"Since Texas is the second largest consumer of textbooks in the U.S., publishers often create a book that meets Texas standards and then sell the same version to school districts across the country.

"Any standards the board adopts when it votes on the new science standards at the end of March won't impact textbooks until 2012.

"McLeroy said he hopes to see the original language restored in the final vote.

"'I want to see the United States keep its scientific edge,' he said. 'And I think the way you do that is by being honest with the kids, you teach them the science, you show them the weaknesses and strengths.'"

Link:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506724,00.html

with rigidly mandated curricula can determine the entire textbook trade. From what I recall, though, is that the right wing is more generally about getting things out of textbooks than getting them in. So in their idiotic bids to get creationism into the textbooks, their real agenda is more or less eliminating evolution or watering it down. In other words, they will drop Newt Gingrich if, say, Jane Adams gets dumped. The right wing claims "African Americans in 1842 thought slavery was just peachy keen" and the horrors of the Middle Passage go unmentioned. And the result is that in American history, nothing really happened.

So if Texas mandates their lunacy, then we counter with New York. And the large publishing companies present bullshit called "civic studies."

:thumbsup:

Thanks for bringing that into this discussion; it's not about "It can't happen here," it's about, "This MUST NOT happen here!"

But I like being "Abby Normal". Why do you think I'm here? :P

And y'all wonder about us...

Nuff said!

Obviously, you didn't get your education in Texas :P

Cowboy!

I know that Texas tends to dominate American education in the sense that if they don't like a textbook, it tends not to get published, which means they get to cherrypick what's taught in other states either deliberately or otherwise. I assume that's due to the size of the textbook market that Texas controls internally, which makes sense on its own.

What I'm curious about, though, is that I've never really hard of any of the other really large states having a similar impact on nationwide textbook standards. What does Texas have in that regard that, say, New York or California don't which makes it such a powerful influence?

Apparently, Texas, Florida and California make up about 25% of the textbook market.

If you publish textbooks, you want to sell them in as many places as you can, all over the country and beyond.

Text books have to meet Texas standards to sell in Texas, which is indeed a large part of the market. And Texas has relatively stringent standards. So you start with a book that is acceptable there. The first version of any written document of anything is always the most influential, whether it's a contract or a textbook or a poem. After that, you're only modifying that first verson, going uphill against it

The cheapest, and therefore most profitable, route for the publisher is to sell the same book wherever you sell. The second cheapest way is to make as few changes as possible for districts outside Texas.

Hence the inordinate influence.

So basically it's more difficult to get a book to pass muster in Texas, but if you do so you've got a lock on the second-largest school system in the country and (probably) also have a book that will be adopted in other states?

many states outside the Bible belt that will buy anything like the history described on this thread. Then again, I cannot imagine that even all Texas parents will stand still for this one. There must be some who care about their kids' brains.

It sounds like something where they might be better off doing the Texas Edition and the Everyone Else Edition, although that would probably be worse than your cost most efficient option that you mentioned. Is there a possibility that the state would lean on publishers over out of state editions ("If you change this for Illinois schools, we aren't buying it"), or would that be too much even for them?

Your explanation is interesting, though; it's utterly not something I'd considered. I thought that the influence was just due to market size, which wouldn't make sense with California out there too. I am now a tiny bit less clueless than I was before!

Democrats in Texas who post here. Ann Richards was a Texan. So was Molly Ivins (albeit born in California). So are some of the most liberal women I know (though most of them are transplants).

progressive DU Texans, you have a proud tradition and we are not talking about you.

Now, start running like hell and don't stop until you get to a true blue state.

Take I-35 North and then go a little east

Much to y'all's chagrin.

And I thought Republicans didn't have any patience. You have heard that we're turning blue, right?

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While you're at it, give California back to Mexico, too. And then demand that Mexico give it all back to the Natives, along with the rest of the "U.S."

information to students, you cross the line into from reality into fantasy, and find it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. If I lived in Texas I'd be making plans to move away immediately.

We stay and fight, no matter the costs.

By the way, have you noticed that we're winning that fight? That we're slowly turning blue? No, I didn't think so. You see stories like this and assume it means we're all the same. Typical.

WHY are California, Texas, and Florida the biggest textbook consumers among the states? Presumably, because they have the greatest numbers of students. This would imply that, aside from how their standards might affect the quality of education in other states, they definitely affect the education of a significant proportion of the national population.

I think that perhaps educational standards should not be left to the whims of individual states, at least, not to the extent they apparently have been. Not that I have any illusions this will change anytime soon, but it seems clear to me that any assertion of "states' rights" must give way when one state's standards can exert such undue influence over the entire nation.

when you abandon a state to the Republicans, treat Dems who live there like shit, & only talk sweet to them when you want their money.

So don't cry when the chickens come home to roost. The DNC & Dems all over this country are responsible for what happened in Texas.

dg

And that's really saying something!

For a more detailed look at the Borad of Education, check out this article from this month's issue of Texas Monthly:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/2009-09-01/btl.php

really need to read the draft of the TEKS (the education standards), because some very ignorant comments have been made, such LBJ and FDR being left out of the standards.

I am posting the link to the standards, and I am going to post some relevant sections:

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/teks/social/USHistory073109.pdf

Identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly, and the Moral Majority.<113.32(c)(10)(B)> (See comment A66 as well)

Evaluate the domestic and international leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, including the U.S. relationship with its allies and domestic mobilization for the war effort.

evaluate the effectiveness of New Deal measures in ending compare Herbert Hoover’s and Franklin Roosevelt’s approaches to resolving the economic effects of the Great Depression; and

analyze describe how various New Deal agencies and programs continue to affect the lives of U.S. citizens, such as including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Social Security Administration. continue to affect the lives of U.S. citizens.

identify actions of government and the private sector to expand economic opportunities to all citizens, such as the Great Society and affirmative action; and

All of these are contained in the draft for U.S. History after Reconstruction.

As I said over in the Texas forum where this was mentioned, it is unlikely that this will remain in the standards or remain without being balanced, as was suggested by the reviewers (in comment A66).

Repukes have literally done nothing for us, so they have to fake it...check this out:

What Have Liberals and Democrats Ever Done For Us?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/14/85739/846
Fri Oct 14, 2005 at 05:57:39 AM PDT

If you listen to Republicans or even the media, it goes without saying that the Democrats have no platform. No goals. No plans for the future other than hating President Bush. Now, hating President Bush takes a lot of time because there is a lot to hate.

However, our leaders in Congress are putting the finishing touches on a unified campaign strategy as we speak. Soon enough the world will learn the Democratic goals for the future.

And of course we have discussed what those goals should be. We have also discussed what Progressives today want. And we have learned about Progressives past and their accomplishments.

But I thought it would be helpful to put in list form all of the accomplishments and achievements and victories of Progressives, Liberals and Democrats over the last century....

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/14/85739/846