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Texas and Textbooks.

They've decided the christian bible is the only textbook they need.
 
rjwould said:
They've decided the christian bible is the only textbook they need.
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Ha, which version of the Bible? It's always funny to see the reaction from fundamentalists when confronted with that thorny question.
 
The fact that they will likely have this false information in there is enough for concern.
 
5. McLeroy also wants to clear the name of Joseph McCarthy. In sections of history books that deal with McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee, McLeroy wants to emphasize first and foremost "the extent and danger of Soviet agent infiltration of the U.S. government as revealed in Alger Hiss' guilt and confirmed later by the Venona Papers."
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:mad: Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?

9. A meta-lesson: never miss an opportunity to stick it to a Democratic president. A section on "political scandals" including Teapot Dome and Watergate, now includes "Bill Clinton's impeachment."
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I'm having a hard time thinking of a reason NOT to include Bill in there. It was an impeachment for Christ sake. As long as they include Watergate, who cares?
 
I see no mention of them dropping Thomas Jefferson from history. Did that get fixed?
 
KingMerv00 said:
I'm having a hard time thinking of a reason NOT to include Bill in there. It was an impeachment for Christ sake. As long as they include Watergate, who cares?
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I'm a (occassional) leftist who agrees with you.
 
Zygar said:
I see no mention of them dropping Thomas Jefferson from history. Did that get fixed?
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I seem to recall that the Jefferson issue was in regard to curriculum standards for world history, not American history textbooks.

The Board wanted to drop Jefferson (the deist) as being an influence on Enlightenment thinking. Educators were not forbidden to teach about this aspect of Jefferson's life nor was there any talk about removing him from texts books in any subject.
 
I don't see the harm. Sure, we use grade school to socialize our kiddles, but most of this stuff isn't going to come up until they hit a college level history course. As long as the textbooks aren't outright lying, why should it matter to other than historians?

I have confidence in the ability of youth to ignore wholesale any subtlety in the instruction they receive, and most of the blatant stuff as well. If you want to see alternate histories reshaping public opinion, you don't need to look at textbooks, you can tune your radio to any AM talk show.

The idea that students are empty vessels awaiting any misinformation to fill them seems wrong.
 
This is obviously very dangerous as Texas buys a lot of textbooks, it's a big state with a lot of people in it.

They could have an effect on influencing the production and distribution of textbooks.
 
Alt+F4 said:
I seem to recall that the Jefferson issue was in regard to curriculum standards for world history, not American history textbooks.

The Board wanted to drop Jefferson (the deist) as being an influence on Enlightenment thinking. Educators were not forbidden to teach about this aspect of Jefferson's life nor was there any talk about removing him from texts books in any subject.
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I head that the SBOE was going to require that Jefferson be airbrushed from the paintings of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
:p
 
INRM said:
This is obviously very dangerous as Texas buys a lot of textbooks, it's a big state with a lot of people in it.

They could have an effect on influencing the production and distribution of textbooks.
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That has been raised as a concern, except for the fact that modern printing on demand methods allow publishers to customize books to the particular state standards at will.
 
One of the changes:

B) evaluate contrast the impact tone of muckrakers and reform leaders such as Upton Sinclair, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, andW. E. B. DuBois on American society; and versus the optimism of immigrants including Jean Pierre Godet as told
in Thomas Kinkade’s The Spirit of America.
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I wonder if this means that Thomas Kinkade will illustrate the new books?
 
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