REWRITING HISTORY, TEXAS STYLE, ctd.

Just yesterday I posted about the Texas Board of Education rewriting history. If you are interested in learning more about this intrepid board here is a link with a PROFILE written by Mariah Blake. It is worth reading in its entirety, but I've included a few bits below.

And if you wonder why you should care about this, not being in Texas and all, I suggest you pay particular attention to the passages I have made bold.

DON McLEROY - “Evolution is hooey.” “The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years . . .”

Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy . . .  As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers.

Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced . . . by California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.

CYNTHIA DUNBAR (Remember, she kicked out Jefferson) - rails against public education, which she dubs “tyrannical” and a “tool of perversion,” and says sending kids to public school is like “throwing them into the enemy’s flames.” (More recently, she has accused Barack Obama of being a terrorist sympathizer and suggested he wants America to be attacked so he can declare martial law.)

PETER MARSHALL - has argued that California wildfires and Hurricane Katrina were God’s punishment for tolerating gays. . .

DAVID BARTON - argue[s] that the wall of separation between church and state is a myth. . .

[W]hile they concede that people like Martin Luther King Jr. deserve a place in history, they argue that they shouldn’t be given credit for advancing the rights of minorities. As Barton put it, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Ergo, any rights people of color have were handed to them by whites—in his view, mostly white Republican men. . . .

The ultraconservatives argued that [the English language arts] were too light on basics like grammar and too heavy on reading comprehension and critical thinking. “This critical-thinking stuff is gobbledygook,” grumbled DAVID BRADLEY. . .

[T]he next generation of textbooks will likely bear the fingerprints of the board’s ultraconservatives—which is just fine with McLeroy. “Remember Superman?” he asked me, as we sat sipping ice water in his dining room. “The never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way? Well, that fight is still going on. There are people out there who want to replace truth with political correctness. Instead of the American way they want multiculturalism. We plan to fight back—and, when it comes to textbooks, we have the power to do it. Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.”

~

[ADDED: It might be worth noting that while Texas reported that 85 percent of its students in grades four and eight were proficient readers based on year-end state testing in 2008, on the federal assessments (the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP), only 29 percent actually were. - Diane Ravitch]

REWRITING HISTORY, TEXAS STYLE

from a Live-blogged transcript:

9:30 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas (replacing with “the writings of”) and to Thomas Jefferson. She adds Thomas Aquinas and others. Jefferson’s ideas, she argues, were based on other political philosophers listed in the standards. We don’t buy her argument at all. Board member Bob Craig of Lubbock points out that the curriculum writers clearly wanted to students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson. Could Dunbar’s problem be that Jefferson was a Deist? The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards.

ALSO:

12:28 – Board member Mavis Knight offers the following amendment: “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” Knight points out that students should understand that the Founders believed religious freedom was so important that they insisted on separation of church and state.

12:32 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar argues that the Founders didn’t intend for separation of church and state in America. And she’s off on a long lecture about why the Founders intended to promote religion. She calls this amendment “not historically accurate.”
12:35 – Knight’s amendment fails on a straight party-line vote, 5-10. Republicans vote no, Democrats vote yes.

12:38 – Let the word go out here: The Texas State Board of Education today refused to require that students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others. They voted to lie to students by omission.

[ADDED: Jefferson had explained the actions of his own VA legislature thus: “…an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, ‘Jesus Christ … the holy author of our religion,’ ” which was rejected “by a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindu, and the Infidel of every denomination.” — Thomas Jefferson.]

CAN'T HAVE THAT!

What? You think I'm being rude?

TO READ TRANSCRIPTS OF THE DEBATE CLICK HERE FOR THE TFN INSIDER. [Note: There are several other sections of transcript.]

BUILDING BRIDGES INSTEAD OF WALLS

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion.

Although some government action implicating religion is permissible, and indeed unavoidable, it is not clear just how much the Establishment Clause tolerates. - Cornell University Law School

Because of the First Amendment everyone is free to have their own beliefs, and any practices which do not break the laws of the country (ie. polygamy, cannibalism, etc.), and religion is free from the meddling of the State (ie. directing what can be taught or preached). Likewise, our government is kept from favoring one religion (of the many in this country) over others, and protected from becoming a theocracy.

So many people don't seem to understand the First Amendment, and see its application as an attack. But we live in a quickly shrinking, richly diverse world; that demands we relate to others as equals and build bridges instead of walls. The First Amendment is our ally in this process.