Texas schools board rewrites US history

Orochi

GET OFF MY LAWN :E
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Cynthia Dunbar does not have a high regard for her local schools. She has called them unconstitutional, tyrannical and tools of perversion. The conservative Texas lawyer has even likened sending children to her state's schools to "throwing them in to the enemy's flames". Her hostility runs so deep that she educated her own offspring at home and at private Christian establishments.

Now Dunbar is on the brink of fulfilling a promise to change all that, or at least point Texas schools toward salvation. She is one of a clutch of Christian evangelists and social conservatives who have grasped control of the state's education board. This week they are expected to force through a new curriculum that is likely to shift what millions of American schoolchildren far beyond Texas learn about their history.

The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favour of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy.

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Those corrections have prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting rightwing views on religion, economics and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement and the horrors of slavery.

Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the "significant contributions" of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war.

The new curriculum asserts that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society. Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.

There is also a suggestion that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.

The education board has dropped references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous "Atlantic triangular trade", and recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as driven by Islamic fundamentalism.

"There is a battle for the soul of education," said Mavis Knight, a liberal member of the Texas education board. "They're trying to indoctrinate with American exceptionalism, the Christian founding of this country, the free enterprise system. There are strands where the free enterprise system fits appropriately but they have stretched the concept of the free enterprise system back to medieval times. The president of the Texas historical association could not find any documentation to support the stretching of the free enterprise system to ancient times but it made no difference."

The curriculum has alarmed liberals across the country in part because Texas buys millions of text books every year, giving it considerable sway over what publishers print. By some estimates, all but a handful of American states rely on text books written to meet the Texas curriculum. The California legislature is considering a bill that would bar them from being used in the state's schools.

In the past four years, Christian conservatives have won almost half the seats on the Texas education board and can rely on other Republicans for support on most issues. They previously tried to require science teachers to address the "strengths and weaknesses" in the theory of evolution – a move critics regard as a back door to teaching creationism – but failed. They have had more success in tackling history and social studies.

Dunbar backed amendments to the curriculum that portray the free enterprise system (there is no mention of capitalism, deemed to be a tainted word) as a cornerstone of liberty and argue that the government should have a minimal role in the economy.

One amendment requires that students be taught that economic prosperity requires "minimal government intrusion and taxation".

Underpinning the changes is a particular view of religion.

Dunbar was elected to the state education board on the back of a campaign in which she argued for the teaching of creationism – euphemistically known as intelligent design – in science classes.

Two years ago, she published a book, One Nation Under God, in which she argued that the United States was ultimately governed by the scriptures.

"The only accurate method of ascertaining the intent of the founding fathers at the time of our government's inception comes from a biblical worldview," she wrote. "We as a nation were intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world."

On the education board, Dunbar backed changes that include teaching the role the "Jewish Ten Commandments" played in "political and legal ideas", and the study of the influence of Moses on the US constitution. Dunbar says these are important steps to overturning what she believes is the myth of a separation between church and state in the US.

more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history


This is why I will never set foot on that state. Except maybe Dallas.
 
Well, sucks to be at school there really, doesn't it?

I guess it does rock to live in a country populated by apathetic fucks sometimes.
 
IF THAT WHORE TOUCHES HISTORY. I WILL KILL HER IN MY MIND ON P[RINCPLE.

AND WISH THAT I COULD DO IT FOR REAL.

THIS IS HOW FACISM STARTS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. FIRST THEY TAKE YOUR PAST, THEN YOUR PRESENT AND FINALLY YOUR FUTURE.

FIGHT THAT BITCH.
 


RAGE WITH ME BROTHERS!!!!
 
Lulz, little does she know but she's following the same exact route that people like Osama bin Laden follow. Slapping her own interpretation of religion on politics, claiming her way is the right way and educating people through her own belief system. Religious fundamentalism is a very new concept bitch, only coming out in the past 100 years as a reaction against modern society. So have fun living in your caves and being labeled as extremists. You have no place amongst religion because you fail to live up to the basic understanding of all the followers of the Abrahamic God.

P.S. Who'd bet she'd be offended if I told her, Jesus was Jewish? :cow:
 
I must detox from the rage now!

Can we give Texas back to Mexico, or would that be unkind to our southern neighbors?
 
I just. . .I can't even. . . THERE IS NO EMOTICON FOR WHAT I AM FEELING RIGHT NOW.
 
Ocha, I believe it would. We want to improve their shitty economy, not fill their country with wacky bozo's
 
How about we just make Texas, its own nation again?
 
And people wonder why I hate myself for being born in Texas. Religion destroys yet another thing.
 
Don't blame the entire state, gais.

Feel free to assassinate people like her though.
 
And people wonder why I hate myself for being born in Texas. Religion destroys yet another thing.

I say it's more of radical dumb ass destroys yet another thing.
 
I'm with Daiki/ Rory on this one.

Extremists in religion or anything else are what cause situations like these to happen across the world. All the people really need to hope for is that someone with some damn sense get political pull in Texas.
 
I must detox from the rage now!

Can we give Texas back to Mexico, or would that be unkind to our southern neighbors?
No.

How about we just make Texas, its own nation again?
NO.

Do note though that these reforms have already been passed; still, I'll be out of highschool before the textbooks show up, and kids in AP classes or those with more liberal teachers will get a rather different story.
 
I couldn't bear to read through the whole thing just for its injustice to what America originally stands for. In addition this person is saying that they will not give their children the right to persue other knowledges and other teachings. Honestly if you want your kid to grow up the way you want then teach them yourself...but come on think about what trauma your causing on your child when you infect the public schools.

The child will end up growing up hated by their piers because their parents are idiots (Think South Park the Movie and Kyle's Mom). All I can say is you have to be a pretty terrible person to take away the youth's right to think for themselves.
 
...examining scientific advances through military technology.
betterliving.jpg


Can we give Texas back to Mexico, or would that be unkind to our southern neighbors?
Can I curb stomp you with my size 10-1/2 GI boot 'till the cows come home?

P.S. Who'd bet she'd be offended if I told her, Jesus was Jewish? :cow:
Fookin' Prawn Jew...

Next thing you're going to do is say Jesus was not only a Jew but also a zombie.

Any who, thank Christ I graduated in 2003. Hell, even in the failed experiment that was community college I still got a good historical lesson from both my AP US History professor and my Texas Government professor, who I might add ran for City Council and is hated by the DA whenever he gets called for jury duty.

Also, leave the extremism to the professionals.

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I stress the word 'professionals...'
 
*Cries with shame*