Conservative Group Confirms: SBOE ‘Manipulated’ and ‘Politicized’ Texas Curriculum Standards

[efhmc]

The conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute today released an analysis that confirms what the Texas Freedom Network has been saying for months: our state’s new social studies curriculum standards are so politicized that they will undermine the education of a generation of Texas kids.

The think tank’s analysis charges that the right-wing bias in the standards is so bad that it almost mirrors the kind of indoctrination promoted by schools in the old Soviet Union. It also says members of the State Board of Education (SBOE) “showed themselves determined to inject their personal religious beliefs into history education.” And it slams those state board members for displaying an “overt hostility and contempt for historians and scholars” in writing the new standards. You can read more about Fordham’s stunning critique of the SBOE and new curriculum standards here: http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6457

[Bill USA]

1. "curriculum standards are so politicized that they will undermine the education of a generation

of Texas kids"

Racing to the bottom. Great post!

RECOMMENDED!

[efhmc]

2. Thanks. Another interesting excerpt.

Throughout the Texas standards, dozens of references (even the title of the high school economics course) offer a drumbeat of uncritical celebration of “the free enterprise system and its benefits”—resembling, in an inverted historical echo, Soviet schools harping on the glories of state socialism. Native Americans, disproportionately discussed in many other states, are almost totally missing. Slavery is downplayed and segregation barely mentioned—omissions pointedly noted by former U.S. education secretary (and Houston superintendent) Rod Paige. 16 Members of the SBOE also showed themselves determined to inject their personal religious beliefs into history education. “Judeo-Christian (especially biblical law)” and “Moses” are, incredibly, listed as the principal political influences on America’s founders. The separation of church and state, a much-debated and crucial concept in the drafting of the state constitutions (1777–1781) and the federal Constitution (1787), is simply dismissed.

[benld74]

3. NSS! (No Sh*t Sherlock!)

[efhmc]

4. The fact that someone, anyone, realizes and reports this is

amazing to me. I am a liberal, progressive, feminist today because of my mother and father, my temperament and my Texas teachers. We have gone to "hell in a hand basket" as old time Texans would say.

[Mopar151]

5. Why does the SBOE hate children?

To condemm them to a life of graceless ignorance?

[efhmc]

6. They want to make sure they have plenty of right wingers

for the future. Being able to think for oneself is a big no-no.