One week ago, fellow writer Kayla Renee?wrote about a recent attempt to push religious propaganda to students via textbooks in Texas. While this vote was briefly stayed, the Board voted two days later to approve these textbooks, despite heavy opposition. All 10 Republicans voted in favor of the 89 new books, with all five democrats voting against. One national publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, withdrew a book high school Government book at the last minute, reportedly due to the difficulty in satisfying Texas’ new requirements while simultaneously creating a textbook that can be used nationwide.
Where do I even begin with this?
The textbooks were approved with little review due to time constraints and continuous revisions. According to the Associated Press (AP), the new academic standards adopted in 2010?were designed to combat “liberal bias” in the classroom. Apparently,?previous standards were either “too sympathetic to Islam or downplay the achievements of President Ronald Reagan.”
Here are a few of the “highlights” of the new textbooks. This list is not comprehensive; I’d like to include more about the books, but not even the Texas Board of Education read all of them before approving. As a result. not all of the books have been read, even to date, despite hundreds of pages’ worth of changes made at the last minute prior to the vote.
- Moses was influential in the development of American Democracy.?Our founding fathers referenced philosophers like Locke to build our government. Best of all, Locke’s social contract was a “repudiation?of the biblical
covenant view.” (Texas Freedom Network) - Our Founding Fathers based the American Constitution off the Bible. Last I checked, there are no laws against divorce, coveting thy neighbor, or not being a Christian – though there’s no lack of trying.
- Slavery is downplayed as a cause of the Civil War. While slavery was not the?only reason for the war, to claim that it wasn’t a major contributing factor is just inaccurate.
- The wall of separation between Church and State is?undermined.?For the record, this article is detailing what happens when overly religious zealots climb that wall.
- Islam and Muslims are shown in a negative light.?Because nothing says “education” like devaluing and ostracizing students with their own textbooks!
- This one’s interesting:?some textbooks fail to cover Christian doctrine and history as thoroughly as they used to. They assume that students are already Christians and don’t need the information. Glory!
- Outdated and offensive terms/concepts to describe black people. But we’re a post-racism society, right?
- Minimal or complete lack of coverage of LGBT civil rights battles. I’m assuming they’ll be providing special textbooks for the “Pray the Gay Away” elective course to be offered in 2016. (Sarcasm)
- There is little-to-no evidence supporting climate change, and scientists are divided on the issue.?No. Just no.
These issues are the tip of the spear when it comes to our students’ education. ?While most school districts are free to choose any textbooks they like, most tend to follow the state approved list. ?Also, this approval will have some far-reaching consequences. ?Texas’ size means that it has influence when it comes to textbooks – many sources indicate that when books are approved in Texas, they are often used elsewhere. ?So don’t think you’re safe just because you don’t live in the Lone Star State; these books are coming for?you.?Also, if these changes were approved, it’s only a matter of time until other subjects come under fire. Biology is already attacked by the right, but we can probably expect attacks on other subjects like Psychology. Can you imagine textbooks that claim that most mental disorders are curable via prayer? An astronomy book that lists the origin of the universe to be a god? Maybe a literature textbook that claims the Dead Sea Scrolls were the first novel? The possibilities are endless and horrifying.
We can only hope that the various school districts will have the common sense to find real history textbooks that contain actual information, rather than these abominations. Kids are easily influenced, and purposely feeding them false information in school of all places is only going to hurt all of us in the long run.
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