Texas May Bar Students from Learning About Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall

[Better Believe It]

Texas May Bar Students from Learning About Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall
by Tula Connell
July 16, 2009

United Farmworkers founder César Chávez is an unfitting role model for students, and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is not an appropriate historical figure. So say “expert reviewers” in their report to the Texas State Board of Education, which recommends removing the two U.S. leaders from the social studies curriculum taught to its 4.7 million public school students.

The ranting of these extremists has the potential to turn into mass censorship—Texas is such a mega-purchaser of textbooks that the state’s required curricula drives the content of textbooks produced nationwide.

The Texas Freedom Network, which monitors actions by religious reactionaries on the state’s school board, points out that two of the “expert reviewers” are unqualified to be on the panel and were appointed mainly because of their background as religious ideologues.

David Barton, founder of the conservative Christian advocacy group WallBuilders, and the Rev. Peter Marshall, an evangelical minister from Massachusetts who runs Peter Marshall Ministries, were appointed to the state school board in March.

The Texas Freedom Network describes Barton and Marshall this way:

Barton, former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party, is a self-styled “historian” without any formal training in the field. He argues that separation of church and state is a “myth” and that the nation’s laws should be based on Scripture. He says, for example, that the Bible forbids taxes on income and capital gains. Yet even such groups as Texas Baptists Committed and the Baptist Joint Committee have sharply criticized Barton’s interpretations of the Constitution and history.

The Peter Marshall Ministries website includes Marshall’s commentaries sharply attacking Muslims, characterizing the Obama administration as “wicked,” and calling on Christian parents to reject public education for their children.

Please read the complete article at:

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/07/16/texas-may-bar-student... /

[HopeHoops]

1. Maybe they can strip out all references to slavery while they are at it.

And we never had any internment camps for Japanese Americans either. Can't let kids think that. While were at it, we'd better change the books to say we easily won the Korean and Viet Nam wars. We wouldn't want kids thinking we can't handle a fight with some dipshit little country. Japan bombed itself to make the US look bad, but we kicked their asses anyway using nothing but good ol' Amurkin' handguns made in Texas. We'd better rewrite the quotes from the Constitution to make sure they cite the Bible passages the founding fathers OBVIOUSLY were thinking about at when they wrote it. They'd want that.

Now lets move on to the Science books...

[glinda]

2. Maybe they can strip out their education funding.

[Hydra]

8. The sad thing is that they may as well

Most of what I know about what America I learned after I got out of school.

[ellisonz]

3. Racist.

[central scrutinizer]

4. They will Just use one textbook for every subject - the Bible

They already have glued half of the pages in biology textbooks together to remove evolution.

[Wednesdays]

5. K&R

[Catherine Vincent]

6. Where else but Texas!

[fishwax]

7. Marshall and Barton are whackjobs

It's frightening to think they could have such power over what students nationwide learn about our history.

[silverlib]

9. Peter Marshall - what a disappointment...

I'm old enough to remember his father and his mother - both Presbyterian authors filled with love and compassion (at least that is what I remember) - I was so disappointment when I googled and found out that this is the lineage that followed. I was so hoping that this was a different "Peter Marshall."

[EFerrari]

14. Did his mother write "Christy"? I thought the name rang a bell. n/t

[silverlib]

16. Yes, Catherine Marshall was his mother...

how sad...

[lexanman]

10. Texas

the armpit with b.o. of America. Teh stupid is stong with them.

[Solly Mack]

11. Ick. Damn

[defendandprotect]

12. The outlaw state . . .

[BlooInBloo]

13. (shrug) Once again, Americans fighting for their right to be as stupid as possible.

[Incitatus]

15. doubleplusgood