This has to be one of the most biased “news” items ever from the AP, and that’s saying something.
It begins:
“A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.”
Really? A “far-right faction”? Sounds almost like there’s going to be some sort of military coup at the next Texas State Board of Education meeting.
Later in the article:
Ultraconservatives wielded their power over hundreds of subjects this week, introducing and rejecting amendments on everything from the civil rights movement to global politics.
Oh my! Not just conservatives, but “ultraconservatives”! You can almost smell the extra evil.
This “news” item reads almost like a post on some nutty left-wing blog like the Daily Kos or Think Progress.
So what does this sinister, “far-right faction” want to teach our kids? According to the AP:
Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a “constitutional republic,” rather than “democratic,” and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.
….
According to the AP, “Another amendment deleted a requirement that sociology students ‘explain how institutional racism is evident in American society.'”
Just try to find an AP news item, referencing events in the United States, that refers to Democrats or liberals as “far-left” or “ultraliberal”. Notice that the writer doesn’t seem to find anything politicized or “far-left” in teaching children about “institutional racism.” For liberals, liberal views are just normal and apolitical, it’s only conservative (or simply non-left) views that are suspect and need to be labeled or critiqued. That would be just fine in an editorial piece, it has no place in a supposedly objective news item.
The Unalienable Right 
I agree the piece was sensationalist. The changes are not going to do much other than satisfy some conservatives. McLeroy is accurately termed “ultraconservative.” He’s one of these people who believes the bible literally word for word and thinks that the opponents of desegregation had valid points not related to racism. He’s trying to insert some of his activism into the textbooks with semantic changes like “republic” instead of “democracy.” Frankly, the students won’t appreciate the difference, so his efforts are mostly for naught. Plus, educators, particularly in urban school districts, are mostly liberal so they probably won’t aid him in his quest.
How about the elimination of Thomas Jefferson from the books? Those liberals are at it again!
Taking Thomas Jefferson and the separation of church and state out of the curriculum and adding the Judeo-Christian influences of the founders and removing the Philisophical influences is about as “ultra-conservative as it can get. Do you want this country to turn into a Christian Theocracy?
The idea that teaching students about the Judeo-Christian influences on our nation in any way leads toward “theocracy” is just pure nonsense, usually a result of hostility toward those religious influences.
But this post is not about the content of the Texas curriculum, it is about the content of the AP “news” item, specifically the out-of-place opinion/editorial content.
AP is justified in this characterization, these are not historical scholars. Perhaps if we layout a more objective analogy, and consider another perspective? What if this was a math text book being altered, removing components they didn’t feel necassary (after all who needs algebra)? If they were rewriting the math curriculum, would you not expect them to at least bring in some mathmeticians to help mediate the changes?
I will start petition for Texas to stop receiving federal dollars for their schools since they are fronts for neo con religious propaganda. The separation of church and state allows you to believe whatever mystical dribble you choose to believe in but it also allows me as a taxpayer and a parent with children in Texas public schools to have my children protected from those influences I do not support. I read some of the transcripts from this meeting and these people are way out of touch.
Prolly the whole Enlightenment thing was over our heads anyway.
I would like to thank the Texas Board of Education and people like yourselves for putting the final nails in the coffin of the party of Reagan. Maybe when the GOP has finally recovered from the inevitable consequences of pandering to morons for three decades we’ll be able to return to a sensible debate with real conservatives who have intellectual integrity.
What evidence would lead anyone to believe that Reagan (a Christian man, incidentally) would oppose teaching students about the significant Judeo-Christian influences on American history? Please don’t project your own ugly prejudices onto Ronald Reagan.
Oh, but wait, Candi. If we eliminate Thomas Jefferson from the teaching standard,
then we won’t have to tell our children about this alleged “separation between church and state”
(see related article). Substituting religeous figures for the likes of crazy left wing liberals
like Thomas Jefferson is only a defensive measure to protect from the attacks of educated
intellectuals (i.e., people who have not been taught not to think; not educated in “modern” day
Texas).
It is sad to see people applauding ignorance. Leaving out a key figure in American history just so his views of religious separation can be obliterated from high school discussions is a coward’s game. It takes greater courage to advocate to an educated audience. The ultraconservatives on the Texas school board have only shown their spinelessness with this abominable action.
Thomas Jefferson was not eliminated from the curriculum. His name was removed when one section was modified that said, “explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.”
And again, this post is not about the Texas curriculum, it’s about the Associate Press.
Thomas Jefferson, a significant American political figure was eliminated from discussion about Enlightenment ideas and their political effect and he was replaced by John Calvin, a French protestant reformist who lived two hundred years before the age of enlightenment. It is clear the Texas board does not want political discourse but wants to redirect the discussion to irrelavant religious issues.