I’m not a conservative or republican since I believe their political views and remedies to some of our most pressing problems are deficient or inadequate. That said, I don’t believe their ideas necessarily lack utility, but I do believe they limit themselves—it’s what makes them conservative.

Stephen Colbert put it best: “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Consequently, I feel that in implementing policy (take healthcare reform and any environmental issue for example), conservatives don’t have much to offer from their toolbox to repair or solve any of the diverse problems plaguing our society, so they employ the same unimaginative and predictable ideas.  As a result, their ideas often don’t correspond with reality. Perhaps it’s why only 6% of scientists identify their political party affiliation as Republican. As a result, if you can’t beat reality or objectivity, then attempt to change it. It’s what the Texas Board of Education is attempted to do. From the New York Times:

The Texas Board of Education, notorious for its past efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools, has now moved to revise the social studies curriculum to portray conservative ideas and movements in a more positive light and emphasize the role of Christianity in the nation’s founding.

It was a disturbing intervention by the board’s Republican majority into educational decisions best left to the teachers and scholars who have toiled for almost a year to produce the new curriculum standards.

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Some of the changes sound merely foolish, like replacing the word “capitalism” with the words “free-enterprise system.” One board member explained that the term capitalism has negative connotations, as in “capitalist pig.” Others are very worrisome, like questioning the doctrine of “separation between church and state” and dropping Thomas Jefferson, who coined the phrase, from a list of figures whose writings inspired political revolutions from the 1700s on.

From a practical standpoint, the board has inserted so many conservative figures, groups and concepts that must henceforth be studied that an already-long list of requirements may become unmanageable in the classroom time available.

Educators outside of the Lone Star State worry that Texas buys such a large number of textbooks that its requirements influence what publishers include in books that are marketed nationally. That should diminish as digital publishing makes it easier to alter textbooks from state to state. But even that is no comfort to the students in Texas. They deserve to have a curriculum chosen for its educational value, not politics or ideology.

Historians aren’t happy with the Board’s changes. From the Washington Post (emphasis added):

Historians criticized proposed revisions to the Texas social studies curriculum Tuesday, saying that many of the changes are historically inaccurate and that they would affect textbooks and classrooms far beyond the state’s borders.

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Discussions ranged from whether President Ronald Reagan should get more attention (yes), whether hip-hop should be included as part of lessons on American culture (no), and whether President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address should be studied alongside Abraham Lincoln’s (yes).

Of particular contention was the requirement that lessons on McCarthyism note that “the later release of the Venona Papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.”

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Also contentious were changes that asserted Christian faith of the founding fathers. Historians say that the founding fathers had a variety of approaches to religion and faith; some, like Thomas Jefferson, were quite secular.

Some textbook authors expressed discomfort with the state board’s changes, and it is unclear how readily historians will go along with some of the proposals.

Apparently, the Texas State Board of Education is relying on the Internet to “look up information on historical figures that they didn’t know much about.” More on the issue via the Dallas Morning News:

Hispanic lawmakers and academic experts blasted the Texas State Board of Education for minimizing the contributions of minorities as it attempts to rewrite guidelines for the teaching of history and social studies.

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[B]oard members, at their most recent meeting on the curriculum standards, relied on information culled from the Internet while ignoring historians as they drafted amendments to the guidelines, which are supposed to be finalized in May.

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Republican Don McLeroy, the backbone of the conservative voting bloc, acknowledged fellow board members used Internet search engines to look up information on historical figures that they didn’t know much about. But he said members didn’t rely on the searches in the formal curriculum rewriting process.

Image by Clay Bennett found here

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