The Textbook

When the Dark Ages began,I doubt that anyone knew they were going gently into that dark night.

I want my future children to know our foundation. I dont care if there are parts (of our history) that may offend some minor part of the student population. This is what the Soviet Union did...rewrote history to serve there purpose. History should be taught as is and let the students decide how they interpret it. If we have any faith in our school system, students will able to determine through education, not indoctrination.

Isn't the next step burning the books that tell the truth?

It wouldn't be so bad if the Texas State Board of Education decided the curriculum for its state alone, but being the largest market of public school textbooks, Texas often determines which textbooks will be used by students all across the country.

This is just a preliminary vote for these revised standards, but if they approve this decision on the final vote in May (after a period for public comment), students throughout the nation could be stuck with a Rush Limbaugh version of American history for the next decade.

Some of the decidedly conservative spin the board have approved are:

• Teachers 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 will also describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic republic".

• Lesson plans will herald "American exceptionalism" and the U.S. free enterprise system, and promote the Republican philosophy that the economy thrives best absent government intervention.

• In addition to learning about the Bill of Rights, the board required special reference be paid to the Second Amendment's right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class.

• The board also included provisions to ensure that students learn about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.

• The economics curriculum will have no mention of the word “capitalism” which has been replaced throughout the texts with the term “free-enterprise system".

Thanks, Texas. First you gave us George W. Bush, and now you give us THIS!

Hmmm, Texas rewriting history books to promote a far right philosophy? Excluding Jefferson? I guess Jefferson's suggestion of a wall between Church and State does not sit well in Texas. Jefferson being a deist probably does not go over very well in Texas either.

Why does Nazi Germany, North Korea, Holocaust deniers, Roman Catholic Church, etc. come to mind when I read about this? The above are just a few entities who were content to rewrite or destroy written history even to the extent of persecution or execution of people who refused to accept their revisionism. Gotta love that ole tradition of right wing ideologue. It does have a rather colorful history, huh?

Ignorance and blind obedience march hand in hand. Maybe this is one more step toward secession, or an attempt to convince the rest of us it's a good idea.

kidding aside, I don't mind conservative facts in school curriculum, but exclusion of inconvenient history to prop up an agenda is a great injustice to students. Future job applicants may want to lie about where they graduated.

Conservative agenda- keep the kids dumbed down so they will grown up and vote conservative.

Politics have a place in history..a small place. However, I don't want a Conservative view of history, no more than I want a Liberal view of it.

If I want fantasy, no matter which 'side' it may fall on, I'll read fantasy. However, if I want a look back at what actually took place long ago, I want a clear, unvarnished, slant-free picture.

Remember...if we fail to learn from history (no matter who authored it) we are doomed to repeat it....

On a clear day you can see forever, Woody

ahhhh I see the liberal side of the crowd is out early this morning - the one that just knows everything in the history books that extols the virtues of America is suspect. My prediction: Next up will be the other side of the room claiming we're all going to burn in h*ll because christianity and "american values" are being trampled. Extremism from all sides.

James Michener had a wonderful (and wonderfully appropriate) section on this topic in his book, Space. Toward the end of the novel, near the height of conflict between religion and science, a respected astronomer gave a planetarium-assisted address to many of the novel's principals. He used the planetarium to demonstrate the emergence of a supernova during the period known now as the Dark Ages. Yet he affirmed our knowledge of the events from numerous sources in writings of China, Arabia and throughout the world EXCEPT for the swath of what is now most of northern Europe. Pointing out the certainty of the event and its worldwide observation, he concluded: "An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it."

Finally, consider these words: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I had a wonderful course in American History in my public school with a huge tome of a textbook--Comager and Morrison's The Growth of the American Republic. The book was so well written, I wanted to finish it to see how it turned out! The history therein was complicated, messy and real, not the predigested pap of proffered propaganda parroted by the patriots of Texas.

Great post at 6:09, Woody. I couldn't agree more.

Robert Wuhl has a great HBO stand-up special entitled Assume the Position (and the sequel entitled Assume the Position 201). In this special he discusses how much of history has been altered/created, much like pop culture. He also reminds us of a quote from the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance": "No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Texas was headed this way with Biology texts, demanding that Texas (and hence the publishers) include "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution, code for teach creation and intelligent design. Thankfully, Don McLeroy was voted off the board before he could push it through, defeated by fellow republican Thomas Ratliff.

Farenheit 451 could happen... if we let it.

When I read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, 10 years after I graduated from high school, I was disappointed and saddened that our school systems allow us to learn an altered history. It seems to create an overblown sense of nationalism I can not accept.

If the school's won't teach the truth, I will make sure I teach my own children about the good and bad.

Yep! Them Texans sure don't know nothing.

Why, they still think the Civil War was fought over something OTHER than slavery! Imagine the stupidity of THAT one! We all KNOW our Northern history books have it right and that it was fought ONLY over slavery. [Hm-m-m...maybe Dear Leader comes by his arrogant "I won!" honestly.]

Yeah, they are SO ignorant in Texas.

/sarcasm OFF.

Don't mess with Texas.

Think what it would be like without their affordable oil industry...including the refineries and the natural gas. All they would have to do is "user fee" the bejesus out it at the wellhead and at the refineries...and issue property tax cash rebates to the citizen-residents. ['Course that would then give Dear Leader a reason to nationalize our oil industry -- something he no doubt has had his eye on for some time now.]

Some of the standards make sense. America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Or, at least, it is supposed to be. Sadly, most people nowadays don't know the difference, and even fewer of them care.

Including a study of the Second Amendment is also important. So much fear of guns has been injected into modern society by liberals, students need to understand that the Second Amendment is the one that protects all the others. If our ancestors hadn't had guns, we'd all still be singing "God Save the Queen."

But leaving Jefferson out? What's up with that? Who are they going to teach wrote the Declaration of Independence, Donald Duck? It may be inconvenient to note that many, if not most, of our founders were Deists rather than evangelical Christians, but it is part of American history. Ignoring it won't make it go away.

A mixed bag of reforms, indeed.

Part of the problem is that it's the government deciding what it wants taught. Imagine dividing the education budget among the number of students and letting parents decide, among competing schools, where to send their children with the money (including home schooling which guarantees parental involvement, small class size, flexibility, and teacher responsibility for results.) Restaurants and cars keep improving because the suppliers of products have to compete to earn customers. Public schools keep getting more expensive, faster than inflation, because they have a guaranteed supply of customers and spend other people's money. Apply the competition model to education, and the liberals can go to their schools and the conservatives to theirs, instead of getting each other mad because they're both trying to pick each others' pockets. Dividing the available money among the number of students would also keep the budget balanced. As a step in this direction and to ease budget pressures right now, let Jim Scales offer spending-cut scholarships: instead of spending $7000 or so per student, offer students $3000 or so to leave the tax-paid schools, thus saving $4000 per student, a real and voluntary spending cut; every student who leaves this way adds 10 cents for every student who stays in the Hamilton County system. (And if they don't do this, they're wasting our money, spending needlessly.) How about a wall of separation between school and state, so that the state is not indoctrinating students, and is not taxing people for education they disagree with? No one avoids a slant, Woody; so we need free competition among slants, and tax-paid schools reduce this vital competition. Remember, part of the problem is that government is running the show. Shrinking government would help.

Andrew, I agree in part, but $4000 per year would provide a pretty poor education. (It would amount to a benefit to the rich, who could pony up the rest for private school) In my school it costs more than $15,000 per year to educate a student, although not all of that comes from fees (a lot comes from the school, but that still is what it costs) To provide adequate facilities, equipment, and properly trained and compensated faculty, to provide those things that other schools have to cut such as art, music, theater and the minor sports. I am not saying that throwing money at the problem solves it, but teachers with 150 students cannot teach or assess student performance effectively.

My opinion is that they should eliminate most high stakes testing, eliminate tenure (fire all teachers and then re-hire those willing to do the job under re-structuring and transparency), put the curriculum and school under the complete control of the principal, fund the school adequately, make parents or guardians pay a nominal fee and attend with students who disrupt class, and use a multi-faceted assessment after the first two years.

In world history, the most important things that happened since the beginning are the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Read N. T. Wright--he's a historian, not just a bishop--on the "historicity" of these.) Name your competitor? 30% of people call themselves Christians of some sort, and 20% call themselves Muslims, who have some respect for Jesus (read Peter Leithart on Islam as a heresy from Christianity). Students not taught about these are done a disservice.

Andrew, students should be taught this in Sunday school, not public school. There are far more Christian churches than public schools.

I haven't read the textbook yet. It's hard for me to comment on it. Where did all of you get a copy of it?

There are no specific textbooks yet. The cartoon apparently refers to the new standards tentatively approved in Texas recently, which won't even be official until the second vote in May. Textbooks will presumably be developed after that.

As I stated before, the standards are very much of a mixed bag. From the New York Times article, ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html

On the positive side, "In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes." All I can say to that is, "it's about time."

On the other hand, "Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term "separation between church and state.")

Unbelievable. Leaving the author of the Declaration of Independence out of your history standards because you didn't like his (IMO very appropriate) views on separation of church and state? That would be like leaving George Washington out because he was a slave owner.

It would be a sad state of affairs to think that Jefferson would be excluded from text books. What are these idiots thinking for even suggesting that this patriot and defender of our Constitution be excluded? This was a man of towering intellect who put forth some of the important principals of our Constitution.

This is an attempt to relegate Jefferson to the background alongside another great American patriot, Thomas Paine. If anyone wants to understand the mindset of our Founding Fathers during the infancy of our nation I would suggest reading 'Common Sense', 'The Rights of Man', and 'The Age of Reason'.

Paine's 'Age of Reason' was very controversial and probably the reason for his being relegated to the background of our history. However his other two books and his stance for American freedom are nothing less than spectacular.

dougmusn, I, too still have the two volumes of Comager and Morrison's excellent, "The Growth of the American Republic." It was some years later that I discovered that the history of the African-Americans and slavery had been lightly brushed over. Perhaps you had a later edition? I believe mine was in the 1950's. I will try to find them.

CLAY BENNETT ON FACEBOOK!

Ok, so this is off-topic, but it's really cool. I don't know how many of you are on Facebook, but I just discovered that Clay Bennett is.

I don't think you can view it if you don't have an account on Facebook, but if you already do, it's really worth a look (if you don't, it's free and really easy to set up an account). Clay posts his cartoons there (linked back to this site) and there are pictures of him, his family, and even some home renovations he's currently undertaking.

Now, it's not like you're peeking through his window shades, or something. He's obviously using his page to reach out to those who follow his work. Although I'd fully understand if you'd prefer to maintain the mystery that is Clay Bennett, it's also very interesting to put some flesh and bones on our local cartoonist. The site can be viewed here:

http://www.facebook.com/bennett.cartoons

I once worked for local company that was owned and managed by Texans. A comical co-worker often said the only good thing that ever came out of Texas was an empty bus. In tracing my family genealogy back to the 1800's I find that a lot of the early settlement in Texas was folks from North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, including many of my relatives. I guess that makes me a party to the politics now going on there.

When I grew up in the fearful 50s and 60s, my 4th grade teacher taught us that Russian school children were different than us in that they "weren't allowed to believe in God", and they were "evil, warlike, and wanted to come here to enslave us because of our holy righteousness".

As I got older, I realized that schoolchildren worldwide were the same as me, and probably received similar propaganda from their own "educators". Some of mine could have written fiction alongside Gene Roddenberry.

In high school, my "American history teacher" in 1968 was a warhawk who kept a large portrait of Bob McNamara on the wall behind him, so you know how that class went. By then I was following media independently however, and naturally suspect of anything I was "learning" in school.

Those teachers were using their own extracurricular material. Imagine if they had textbooks printed to back up their wildly biased slant. OK, quit imagining now and look at Texas.

Can we give Texas back to Mexico? Please.

Perhaps it is time for Federal Standards for school books and teaching curriculum.

Yeah, SvartiTN, let's just give everything over to the feds. In fact, why don't we all just quit our jobs and go work for the feds. That way we can have a big ole federal party and sing and dance into the night as we fly our new red flag.

Beware of federal standards. As long as each state remains free to have its own, a mistake by one need not be copied by all. With one national curriculum, one politically driven mistake (by the right or the left) is foisted upon every child in America.

Besides, there is no constitutional basis for any federal involvement in education. The word "education" doesn't even appear in the Constitution. Therefore under the Tenth Amendment control of education rightly belongs to the states and/or the people, not the federal government.

Our schools are little more than glorified daycare centers. It doesn't matter what curriculum or standards you might try to apply, government schools are inherently flawed. Teaching each student the same information, whether from a liberal or neoconservative slant, makes us all mediocre. Expel the idiots and criminals, irrigate and cultivate the football field, turn the auditorium into a mechanic's garage, fire diversity experts and hire plumbers and carpenters. Lastly, tell Washington to go to Dante's Inferno. The masses need skills, not refinement. The best and brightest need discipline, not distractions. The path we are on leads to a nation of unemployed poets, political actors, post prom single parents and a clone army of sheep-skinned do-nothings. Its time to take the road less traveled. It will make all the difference.

wow anonymight - you'll light up the "sophisticates" with that one! (I like it)

In a way, I agree. The feds cannot help education. Hand control back to the principals, eliminate tenure, and hold the principals accountable to measurable progress. Let them choose how they will measure, let them choose what is taught but make them justify it. They should answer to a board consisting of parents, teachers and local businessmen. These groups SHOULD NOT be elected, but appointed. Decisions should not be made by the county or the state, but by each school.

You don't teach rural children the same way as urban. Poor and migrant kids's needs are not the same as affluent suburban kids. No Child Left Behind was a disaster for a good reason. One size does not fit all.

(No offense, but) Amen, lKeithlu!!! You said it! No child Left Behind was definitely one of the worst things to ever happen to our public schools. We need to get these kids in suitable environments for their needs so we can go back to student-centered teaching, not our current, teacher-centered joke of a system. Even standardized testing requires the least effective level of Bloom's Taxonomy for success. Who cares if our children can exhibit a mediocre level of memorization if they cannot also utilize other important skills such as creativity, evaluation, analysis, et al, in order to become the most successful and productive member of society as possible? I say keep the government away from our children!

MoutainJoe wrote:

'Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term "separation between church and state."'

When the next Dark Age comes, this Texan will take up the banner of Thomas Jefferson and hold the bridge against the horde.

I learned about Thomas Jefferson and Horatius Cocles (Livy, Ab urbe condita) while a student at a small Central Texas Catholic School.

Later, I lived at the foot of Monticello for almost a decade.

Those of you who have walked up the mountain and visited the grave will recall the words that Jefferson authored for his marker, directing that "the following inscription, and not a word more" be cut into the stone, "because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered":

"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."

VIRGINIA STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM [Sec. 1] Where as Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it;

VIRGINIA STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

[Sec. 1, continued] that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:

VIRGINIA STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

[Sec. 2] Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

[Sec. 3] And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.

Ok, we voted a few of the idiot religious zealouts out this month, but we got a long way to go. We in the seemingly silent majority are pretty sick of this crap. We're not all dumb, we just keep electing morons. We're working on it. Thanks Clay, another one hits the mark.

TJ, he's my man! Thanks for the post, Inspector.

"That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical." Couldn't have said it better myself. That pretty much sums up the reason why separation of church and state is the only way to go.

Remember if you can tax someone else to support your religious beliefs, they can tax you to support theirs.

Musicman and lkeith, my moniker for NCLB has always been "No Child Left Alone." It's about control, not about improving schools.

My daughter the teacher refers to NCLB as "no child gets ahead"

Unfortunately, it seems that what Texas does with its textbooks impacts the rest of the country since the textbook companies change to suit them and then sell to us. So, these changes in history will impact Tennessee's children at some point. I pose the question, "How do we prevent certain political groups from rewriting the textbooks to suit their own agenda?"

Keep in mind...those of you against Federal standards...that the children have to function in a WORLD market now, not just to the local needs. Many of Chattanooga's graduating students go to colleges in different states or go to work in different states or country...often working for a foreign company. If we were to let the local principal set the standard then our children probably wouldn't be equipped to move on after high school.

Currently, in Hamilton County, TN, school grades are declining, ACT scores are declining, graduation rates are declining, drop out rates are declining while the budget is increasing, teachers pay is increasing, gang violence is increasing.

In this school system, the principals do have some control. They control things like dress code which seems to be the most important issue right now. For example, my middle school child can no longer wear a hoodie in class as the principal deems it "spring" and no longer needed despite the fact that cold weather is still here. In the high schools, some principals mandate a strict dress code and the staff spend precious time to make sure that every one sticks to it. BUT other schools may not have a dress code. But, in the meantime, the students can't do math because our schools are focusing on the "important" stuff.

Hamilton County currently spends about $9000 per student not $7000. That is one of the highest per student rates in the state but our children are clearly not benefiting from it.

I wonder who is writing Tennessee's textbooks?

Mountain Joe, I am not sure what benefit it would be to a child to enforce the 10th Amendment if the child is not ever able to comprehend the amendment's meaning or intent. My experience with the local schools is that there is little focus on our wonderful constitution.

BTW, Musicman, I wouldn't mind working for the Feds...I hear they have great benefits!

I'm not insinuating that change will happen quickly. Evaluating a school is a complicated, multi-faceted process. The most important variable is the teacher. A good teacher doesn't even need a textbook; the material that students cover in high school is not dependent on text books, and texts are expensive and become obsolete quickly. If our classes are taught based on skills instead of content, then each teacher can choose what content they need in order to introduce and reinforce those skills. A set of general books for the classroom, as well as other books, periodicals and access to the internet can substitute for having texts for everyone. However, teaching without a text takes effort and a lot of time. (I know, because I do it) You have to know your subject, and you have to know the age of kids you teach and what reaches them best. You also need to be a member of the professional organization(s) that govern your teaching area, and to keep current on the literature they publish.

A teacher that is made to teach to a specific exam is not making those choices for their own classroom. Instead, they could choose how they will teach, and must make their goals and assessment tools available to the principal and to parents, as well as justification for why they chose them. All areas of teaching have professional groups that meet, publish resources, share ideas, and set standards. For example, as a science teacher I could draw my standards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Chemical Society, etc. Why filter those through a state or county board? Or worse, through NCLB?

lkeithlu, it sounds to me like you are a pretty darn good teacher. I was slowly working up a detailed response as well, but you said it all. In addition, I would like to stress again the importance of professional groups between educators. In music, our big one (but not the only venue by any means) is called Music Educators National Conference (MENC for short) and they outline the standards for teaching music which are used all across the country, and are used in preparing future educators working on their degrees.

Thanks for your kind words, Musicman. Maybe I am and maybe I am not, but I am surrounded by excellent teachers and do my best to learn from their practices and philosophies. Thankfully, I have the freedom (and responsibility) to do so, and the support of a very demanding administration who holds me accountable.