Texas to revise history textbooks: liberals out, Limbaugh and Gingrich in.

According to Thom Hartmann this could affect more than Texas since what is published for them ends up the standard for much of the rest of the nation. I know you DU'ers with kids in school will raise the proper hell if any of these end up in your kids schools.

The Texas State Board of Education review committee is preparing to vote on a draft of proposed standards for history textbooks. Noting that the draft has “nothing about liberals,” the Houston Chronicle reported:

The first draft for proposed standards in United States History Studies Since Reconstruction says students should be expected “to identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.” Others have proposed adding talk show host Rush Limbaugh and the National Rifle Association.

The 15-member committee, stacked with 10 Republicans, is expected to vote along party lines. Earlier this year, a panel of right-wing “experts” produced a report urging the committee to remove biographies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen F. Austin, César Chávez, and instead add history about the “motivational role the Bible and the Christian faith played in the settling of the original colonies.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/21/texas-history-gingrich/

Snippets from Houston Chronicle

The first draft for proposed standards in United States History Studies Since Reconstruction says students should be expected “to identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.”

Gingrich helped lead House Republicans to their 1994 takeover of Congress and became House speaker. Schlafly founded the conservative Eagle Forum and became a leading opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment aimed at formalizing women's equality with men. The Moral Majority formed in the late 1970s as an evangelical Christian organization that influenced politics and public policy for decades.

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.

Among liberals to include, Mercer would nominate the National Education Association, MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood and the Texas Freedom Network — a group that says it promotes “religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the radical right.”

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

to real educated Texans...

I hope both Perry and Hutchinson outspend each other catfighting and have zero money for the general election and everyone is sick of Thugs.

Hawkeye-X

... we were founded by liberals (and greedy people who didn't want to pay the crown) because it was the
Conservatives who were loyal to the King George the 5th.

to remove a picture of Al Gore, currently serving as VP.

Because the state is big, they have buying clout, and basically get to choose textbooks for much of the country. I don't know this fraud hasn't been exposed as front page news.

We don't get a true view of history because this has always been the case...Texas sets the standard because they're so big and get what they want in the textbooks because they're gonna place a big order.

I mean yeah, they're obviously changing, what with re-electing arnie and all... but still. They have more people there... so... ?

And how about New York?

:shrug:

My grandchildren may be using the same textbooks we're using now if things keep going as they are.

So... still wondering how much truth there is to it... and if it is true, what the actual reasons are, cause it obviously isn't population.

The ones on CA history make note of the Native Americans, the Spanish, the Mexicans and the Gold Rush. They sadly gloss over the basic genocide of Native Americans in the 1850's (but in general as a nation we are less open about that than we ought to be).

the nation's books more than CA would.

I work in a library and have had to work with the education services stuff. It could be that CA is not influential in the national market because we have over-specialized our textbooks to specific state standards, which other states either do not need, or are not interested in.

Obviously we're over-specializing ours to specific fucked-up state standards.

TX school books are produced to federal standards, (but not much more) and then mass-produced, lowering their costs. For a lot of states, using the same kind of book as TX is cheaper than ordering their own (and it increases the order, further lowering the cost) As TX still forms the lion's share of that order, their criteria for the textbooks will be given greater consideration. Doesn't make all that much sense to me either, but as a college student, neither does paying 70.00 for a book that I'll be lucky if I get 7.00 back for at the end of the quarter, so go figure.

Meet the Gablers:




This is but one article. Leftist, especially feminist and LGBT activists, have known of the Gablers for quite some time. Googling will bring you many more articles.

There have been several books written about their influence. This kind of crap from TX is well established, and well ingrained in our school systems.

Why are the TX books made national, if CA is bigger?

No sense at all.

I presume that would include the textbook publishers owned by corporations with agendas.

Many on DU talk of the corporate owned media and its influence on "common knowledge." Please remember, textbook publishers are part of that corporate owned media.

Does CA have one, statewide committee choosing textbooks for the entire state? If not, that might be the difference. TX does.

They may go about it in different ways, but the end result is that the state school board sets the standard.

So yes, I agree that the target for all the bashing should really be the publishers, when it comes to the issue of TX's fucked-up books being pushed on other states.

That was what was unique about TX and why the gablers chose TX.

Every article I've read about them over the years has made reference to the fact that it was the unique nature of TX's school board setup that made it ripe for this type of abuse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/us/10textbook.html

Also, KS has a state school board.

Which states don't have state school boards?


Maybe some statewide boards don't set textbook standards for the entire state... seems like a lot of dupliate work... having individual boards all doing the same thing for what are most likely minor differences.

You're talking about CA in 2007. What is the history of how it has been done in CA since 1961? Has it always been done the way it is portrayed in the 2007 article?

Why does this bother you so much? TX had/has an inordinate amount of influence, apparently bad influence, on textbooks nationwide due to its composition and some very concentrated influence by a very small number of people. Many in TX have been fighting it for years. Now you're fighting to show it couldn't have happened? Even the gablers crowed about their influence.

It's not about which states have or don't have state school boards. This is about the amount of influence one state school board had over nationwide textbook content, due to one small group of people.

Here's a bit from one Texan who wasn't very happy with that influence.

And crucial to finding out how to stop it is finding out why it's done this way.

Whatever happend in 61 is history.

CA is bigger, and they're blue... I see opportunity here.

Others apparently see only arguments.

Whatever. I'm done.

for quite some time. They probably have many of the answers for you that I don't have to hand.

Here is the direct link to People for the American Way and what they know of the US textbook issue - including the TX gablers.

There is much more at that link than I could possibly provide just by typing back and forth on a message board.

Take blood pressure medicine before reading, is my advice. For me, I have to keep the Pepto handy. It makes me sick to read what has happened to our school system and textbooks in the name of "religion."

:yourock:


I had no idea that was going on... I knew the fundie-packed board was screwing things up here, but not that it was spreading outward from here automatically. I really wonder if there is some logical explanation as for why this state is influencing other states' textbooks, I can't help suspecting there's one of those crusader types involved somehow.

... Texas sets a statewide standard for textbooks, rather than letting individual school districts make the decisions for themselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/us/10textbook.html

Letting individual districts make their own book requirements? That sounds like a nightmare... where is it done that way?

...they should be contract schools. They have no right to skew history to fit their political party.

The government is going to have to remind churches and schools what the rules are. They both are drifting too far from the law and need to be reined in or left out in the cold with no funds provided by the government.

They tested the government by putting the Bible lessons in this past summer. Someone better have a little talk with them.

Yet, there's no Thom Hartmann. There's no DemocraticUnderground.com getting through.

Why is that?

And how come the RIGHT WING always gets its way?

The Texas School Book Depository has something to do with it

If you want to be a back-water medieval pre-enlightenment state, that's YOUR business.

But Texas schoolbook standards hold the rest of the nation back along with you.

So, Texas, shape-up or ship-out.

I'll buy you all DVD sets of Dora the Explorer so you can learn Spanish.

of the original colonies."


You mean the role that a bunch of redskinned "savages" had in saving the butts of the first Christian illegal aliens to these shores?

Long live the Texas White Guy!

Check it out for a good laugh. (BTW, I'm not endorsing Wikipedia, just ridiculing Conservapedia)

advocating bringing guns to political events, a creation museum, crazy preachers, Limbaugh, Hannity, Bachman, .... there can be no doubt that Sarah Palin will be their nominee for president in 2012. By then they will be totally wacked out.

This kind of thing is in no way a new phenomenon.

to remove the biographies of George Washington, the "Father of Our Country," Abraham Lincoln, the "Savior of Our Country," and the real kicker, Stephen F. Austin, the literal fucking "Father of Texas," without whom there would be no precious fucking Texas for these rats to dwell in, for history about the “motivational role the Bible and the Christian faith played in the settling of the original colonies.”
Even he (Austin) is not spared of this right wing, fundamentalist christian white washing of American history.

Madrasah's for the christan right??

If not, it sounds like a mirror-image of the Soviet Union!

kicking these assholes out!

It's true that Texas (and California) carry a lot of clout, and influence the texts used by the rest of the nation. With that in mind, the ACLU is big enough to put up a good fight against politically motivated "history" standards.

It's also true that there are already too many standards on the books to teach. Marzano, Kendall, and Gaddy, in 1999, estimated the amount of time it would take to address all the content in those standards, and compared it to the amount of time available in current systems. They found that it would take 71% more time; to put it in practical terms, we would need to extend the current system past grade 12 through grade 22 to do all that content justice.

We obviously can't afford to add more content.

I am serious.

That said, this is one of the reasons why I predict the country, when it falls apart, will go into four to five successor states.

Islamists tolerate garbage like this whereas leftists do not.

Can we give it to the Jews already???