Christian conservatives win, children lose: Texas textbooks will teach public school students that the Founding Fathers based the Constitution on the Bible, and the American system of democracy was inspired by Moses.
On Friday the Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education voted along party lines 10-5 to approve the biased and inaccurate textbooks. The vote signals a victory for Christian conservatives in Texas, and a disappointing defeat for historical accuracy and the education of innocent children.
The textbooks were written to align with instructional standards that the Board of Education approved back in 2010 with the explicit intention of forcing social studies teaching to adhere to a conservative Christian agenda. The standards require teachers to emphasize America’s so called “Christian heritage.”
In essence, Christian conservatives in Texas have successfully forced a false historical narrative into public school textbooks that portray Moses as an influence on the Constitution and the Old Testament as the root of democracy.
This was a statement released by the Texas Freedom Network, a watchdog group that focuses on fighting against the Religious Right:
Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller had the following statement on today’s State Board of Education vote to adopt new social studies textbooks for Texas public schools. “What we saw today shows very clearly that the process the State Board of Education uses to adopt textbooks is a sham,” Miller said. “This board adopted textbooks with numerous late changes that the public had little opportunity to review and comment on and that even board members themselves admitted they had not read. They can’t honestly say they know what’s in these textbooks, which could be in classrooms for a decade.” Miller was critical of board Republicans for rejecting a common-sense proposal by their Democratic colleagues to delay adoption of the textbooks until Dec. 1 so that late changes could be vetted for accuracy.
The Texas Education Agency posted scores of pages of publisher comments and textbook revisions after the last public hearing on Tuesday. Miller said scholars did not have an opportunity to review and comment on the numerous changes publishers have submitted since the last public hearing on Tuesday. Some of those changes appeared to have been negotiated with state board members behind closed doors.
During a months-long process, publishers made a number of improvements to their textbooks. Those improvements included removing inaccurate information promoting climate change denialism; deleting offensive cartoons comparing beneficiaries of affirmative action to space aliens; making clearer that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War; and revising passages that had promoted unfair negative stereotypes of Muslims. Scholars and the general public had ample opportunity to review and comment on those revisions. However, the new textbooks also include passages that suggest Moses influenced the writing of the Constitution and that the roots of democracy can be found in the Old Testament. Scholars from across the country have said such claims are inaccurate and mislead students about the historical record.
The Founding Fathers were scrupulous in keeping religion out of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and in one fell swoop these right wing revisionists have undone much of their hard work.
Great job Texas!
Unfortunately, TX has been screwing with "revisionist history" for decades. Back in the 80s, a young friend of mine who had recently graduated from High School was telling me about what she had learned in her history class. I knew it was wrong because I had lived through and had intimate knowledge of the period she was talking about. When I pointed out the 'facts' she was incredulous because it was in her history book and that seemed to be gospel enough for her to discount an eyewitness account. That is why I question EVERYTHING I read, from any source, especially history books from TX.
ReplyDeleteThat's how Christianity works: you have to lie to the children.
ReplyDeleteIf you wait until they grow up to indoctrinate them with the nonsense, they'll see it for what it is: bullshit.
Maybe the ACLU will get involved.
ReplyDeleteGryphen,
ReplyDeleteYou will want to read about this hate crime.
http://tinyurl.com/kuvnc5d
That's my hope. This is patently unconstitutional, and seems tailor made for the ACLU. Of course if it goes to the U.S. xian Taliban Supreme Court, we can guess how the vote goes.
ReplyDeleteSharia Law is also inspired by Moses.
ReplyDelete"And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
ReplyDelete—Matthew 19:16-19
Note that Jesus dropped several of the commandments, and said that the greatest of them was to love thy neighbor.
That's not what right-wingers want, so they high-jacked the Old Testament.
But, no matter how hard they try, these "Christians" will never be the Chosen People: Jewish.
There are seven versions of the Commandments, including in the Talmud, from St. Augustine, Martin Luther and others.
Not one of these Commandments appears in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.
Our Founding Fathers were of differing faiths, which is why they decided to let every person practice his or her own religion. A genius idea. The Texas book authority knows nothing of American history, or Biblical history, for that matter.
Their "history" is clearly un-Constitutional, as written in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers.
They're gonna need a bigger boat for that Potomac painting...you got Moses with all that staff and arms flayon about, I won't even get into the "you shall not PASS" becuase quite frankly I believe that was another fairytale.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the major reasons why people are fleeing Texas public schools. We have tons of private schools in Texas metro areas. I know you're a big supporter of public schools, Gryph, but there's no way I'm going to let them indoctrinate my child. The religious conservatives have entrenched themselves in our our schools and we'll just have to starve them of students and tax dollars.
ReplyDeleteFor any of you who haven't read it Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion" is a fantastic takedown of religion and the harm inflicts upon the world. It's free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. He talks a lot about the founders and proves without a doubt that America was NOT founded as a christian nation, not even close.
ReplyDeleteHopefully in instances such as these parents will review their child's textbooks and clear up any incorrect information printed within. In this day and age a parent must be involved in the education process because there are so many that wish to brainwash your children into the mental slavery of religious thinking; it's dangerous to their health and wellbeing, in short, it's child abuse.