The Texas Education Board recently approved conservative curriculum changes for social studies.  The most astounding:  The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin. Jefferson is not a model founder in the board's judgment.  The Board refused to require that "students learn that the Constitution prevents the US. government from promoting one religion over all others."  So, the third President of the United States, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, is to be struck from history because of his support for the separation of church and state.  Other proposed changes: excision of recent third-party presidential candidates Ralph Nader and Ross Perot, and adding language that qualifies the legacy of 1960's liberalism and its "adverse, unintended consequences."  This report at NPR looks at how these "new guidelines could ultimately reshape history and economics texbooks for Texas and, potentially, much of the nation.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124737756

Oh, my!  That sounds like a full report on the controversy.  Yes, there's some kind of danger in those conservative textbooks working their way into US classrooms! 

Or maybe it's because I live in LA that I'm not privy to that sort of scariness.  I have had a crying 8-year old neighborhood kids come to my house to raise money for green movement sponsored by her elementary school down the street.  She was so upset that the earth is going to be a charcoal briquette by the time she grew up. (IF she grows up)  Her classmates were force fed the kiddy version of Al Gore's book-movie.  Dying cuddly polar bears and the like.  Or maybe it's because I'm aware that UCLA finds that a history of the 20th century America spends 3 of its 12 sessions discussing Harvey Milk (including a classroom viewing of the documentary on the man) as more important than JFK who gets a few scant minutes of 1 session.  Maybe it's because a history of the contemporary music class cites Motown as a racist corporation for having forced its singers to take elocution classes. 

Lest we forget that the US teachers unions are pretty much a staple of Democratic backers.  Not much generalized risk in the US textbooks being overly conservative as a result of those facts of life.

Don't get me started.  This is a fascinating subject generally though.  I have a collection of American history textbooks dating back to the pre-Civil War days (aka The War of Northern Aggression) and up to the 1950s.  It's a barrel of guffaws to read the changes that take place over the decades and to contemplate how they influence the zeitgeist of a student population. 

Of course people care.  Of course they should.  And since we are so divided over what's of the greatest importance on almost every count in this country today, it is a natural that it would be reflected in the monitoring of text books.  Pretty much two groups of Americans.  Pretty much both sides think we are on a downward slide too, though each for different reasons.  And pretty much this will be reflected in every which way possible including textbooks.  

This is the way a civilization dies.  Not with a bang but a blah-blah-blah at a Texas schoolbook meeting.  And elsewhere across the divided nation.  Too sad to be a part of this sinking ship while still maintaining the liveliest of memories of its Golden Age.

Susan

For anyone who wants to take the time to read the full story, here's a link that details each and every addition, deletion and that which remains in each curricula.  Pretty much not too shocking especially when you consider a teacher is in the classroom directing the discussion in the way the teacher feels fit to do so.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin