Texas Board of Ed: separating intelligence and education [View All]

from the Columbia Spectator:



The decision of the Texas State School Board of Education last week to remove historical titans like Thomas Jefferson and replace them with activist and partisan figures like the National Rifle Association is not only a threat to the future of the educational system, but to the future of our children.

By Zach Sims & Asher Hecht-Bernstein
Published March 28, 2010


We are fortunate enough as students attending an elite, private educational institution to have access to some of the world’s most brilliant scholars. We also have the ability to choose what we learn, deciding whose theories to subscribe to and whose to discount. Before joining this community of scholars, many of us grew up with public education. The importance of those K-12 years cannot be underestimated. It’s a hapless cliche, but what people learn during those years shapes them for their years to come. Our country needs to craft an American education that instills American values—not religious values, not Republican values, and not liberal values.

The decision of the Texas State School Board of Education last week to remove historical titans like Thomas Jefferson and replace them with activist and partisan figures like the National Rifle Association is not only a threat to the future of the educational system, but to the future of our children. The board’s new curriculum demands the inclusion of “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the National Rifle Association.” The movement’s grassroots conservative base even has its own “Joe the Plumber” in Don the Dentist McLeroy. McLeroy, a member of the board’s conservative majority, claimed that “we are a political body and we have to make political decisions.” But what is political and what is blatantly partisan? The politicization of our education will result not only in an uneven experience for students, but will keep them from knowing key historical facts.

McLeroy, the board’s chair, claimed that the board was “adding balance” while hearkening to the purported liberal skew of academics. Yet, adding pillars of the conservative movement while removing Thomas Jefferson’s contributions to American ideology is not the bartering of parallel truths. It is disregarding historical facts that shaped this country and replacing them with biased dogma. Among other things, the board also decided to entirely remove the word “democratic,” terming the American government instead a “constitutional republic.” ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/03/28/texas-board-ed-separating-intelligence-and-education