No one could have predicted this:
The GOP-controlled (Texas) State Board of Education is working on a new set of statewide textbook standards for, among other subjects, U.S. History Studies Since Reconstruction. And it turns out what the board decides may end up having implications far beyond the Lone Star State.
The first draft of the standards, released at the end of July, is a doozy. It lays out a kind of Human Events version of U.S. history.
Steve Benen summarizes:
Board members — 10 Republicans to 5 Democrats — have recommended downplaying the contributions of civil rights leaders, minimizing an “emphasis on multiculturalism,” and trying to “exonerate” Joe McCarthy.
And let’s also not forget that these indoctrination efforts may have broader implications. As we talked about in July, what happens in Texas doesn’t necessarily stay in Texas. Textbook publishers are reluctant to create different materials for different states, and when one big customer makes specific demands, the frequent result is changes to textbooks nationwide.
My guess is that all the winger states (which I’ll loosely define as states that voted for McCain in 2008) will go at least partway down this path at some point.
I went through a phase of being deeply bothered by the fact that the United States doesn’t function as a post-Enlightenment first world country. But I’ve gotten used to it.
aimai
Its time to cut these people loose. I mean it. No more medicare, public education, or social security until they sign on to the *&^% social contract.
aimai
dr. luba
Time to let the bastards secede……
Parole Officer Burke
I was about to ask about the “no longer,” but it seems you caught it.
Ugh
This is just to counter the massive effects of Obama’s brainwashing speech he’s giving next week, so fair’s fair.
Legalize
Can we please become a modern country? Please? How long are we going to let a loud, mentally ill minority drag us back to the dark ages? My fiance and I plan on having kids some day soon. But seriously, who would want to expose their kids to the cesspool that this country is becoming. I feel like things have been WORSE since Obama was elected. It’s not his fault, but fucking hell, we’re held hostage by a rabble of gun-toating mental midgets who think its ok threaten elected leaders when said midgets lose elections – badly. What the fuck?
dr. luba
Via TPM, more on the proposed curriculum:
Approved textbooks, the standards say, must teach the Texan student to “identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly, and the Moral Majority.” No analogous liberal figures or groups are required, prompting protests from some legislators and committee members.
The standards on Nixon: “describe Richard M. Nixon’s role in the normalization of relations with China and the policy of detente.”
On Reagan: “describe Ronald Reagan’s role in restoring national confidence, such as Reaganomics and Peace with Strength.” (That’s it.)
……And “one member” deemed a section on “effective leadership” a perfect place to bring to students’ attention Charlton Heston’s celebrated (among right-wingers) culture war speech.
Stefan
The first draft of the standards, released at the end of July, is a doozy. It lays out a kind of Human Events version of U.S. history.
You know, this seems very close to indoctrination. We know that the right has always used kids in public schools as guinea pigs and as junior lobbyists for their social facist agenda. Just when you think that these wingers can’t get any more surreal and Orwellian, here they come to indoctrinate our children. This is what Chairman Mao did. This is like Max Headroom, this is going into every single classroom. There is no escape from them. This is historic in the sense that it’s unprecedented. They do this type of thing in North Korea and the former Soviet Union. I would argue it’s a very fine line. It’s propaganda. It seems very cultish, very sort of get in the minds of the kids.
[Note: all my comments, with some paraphrasing and cropping, taken pretty much verbatim from comments on Fox recently complaining about President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren on the virtues of studying hard and staying in school].
WereBear
Well, criminy, I haven’t!
This wasn’t the deal, man. It’s had to believe the country has gone backwards since I was a kid, but it has.
The only soothing part is the “geeky toys category” has improved tremendously. But an iPod touch doesn’t exactly make up for IQs dropping forty points in forty years…
ChrisB
Here’s the best part of Benen’s piece (quoting Justin Elliott):
Allan
I think it’s past time for the head of each department in the Executive Branch to write Gov. Perry and ask if he wishes to cease receiving any federal funds for his state.
ChrisB
@dr. luba: Beat me to it, I see.
matoko_chan
The reason the Teabagger Demographic is so frakin’ nutso right now is that all conservative memes have passed their sell-by date simultaneously!
The free market led to the Econopalypse, being the Super-Awesome World Police has cost a buncha money and made everyone hate us, and the baby-killahs and homos are still running free and there is an actual n i g g e r in THEIR whitehouse.
lulz.
They are culturally and politically disenfranchised.
All they have left is teh crazy.
Warren Terra
Remember the good old days, when they moaned about Darwin and prayer but still conceded a consensus, if whitewashed and anodyne, view of history?
But Obama wanting kids to study – that’s outrageous!
beltane
It is heresy to suggest that Lincoln was wrong, but maybe Lincoln was wrong. When I think of what this country could have been if certain states were not dragging us down…
EvolutionaryDesign
We are fucking doomed. 2012 can’t come fast enough!
MikeJ
I wonder if I should call my rep in the state legislature here in Washington and ask them to introduce a bill forbidding schools from buying Texas approved books.
Sloth
Yes, so what’s next? Doubt that California and New York will sign on, so they’ll write their own versions of history (in a perfect world, a balanced one, but who knows?) and then you’ll basically have the blue states studying one version, the red states another. That’ll end well, I’m sure.
Of course, depending on where health care reform goes, it could be much quicker. If it fails, I imagine you’ll see public options crop up right quick in Massachusetts, NY, CA, etc. Once you have a public option, you bet they’ll start to worry about in-migration of people with costly diseases…then what?
Um?
Eric U.
The republicans since Nixon have definitely made him look good to me in comparison.
Politicizing history textbooks is a little too much. And the idea that it’s un-economic for textbook companies to just blow off Texas and the other states that are being run into the ditch by republicans doesn’t hold water for me.
Xenos
@beltane: The fight would have continued, and continued. Bloody Kansas would have been the future of the continent – Lincoln’s election forced the issue at a time when the South had little chance of winning. Not that the North did not do their best to screw it up – but once it turned into a multi-year struggle I don’t see how the South had a chance.
Leelee for Obama
I will be traveling to teh Prince Edward Island, Canada shortly. I will dig up my Dad’s ashes and I will punch him in the place his face should be, for not moving us to Canada when I was 4. I wrote this same thing this AM as something I thought about doing. After this crap, it’s a moral imperative.
Jacy
My best friend — who is screamingly more liberal than even me — yanked her kids out of school last year and started home schooling because A) She thought academic standards weren’t rigorous enough, and B) she was worried they were picking up too much right wing disinformation. (And this was in California for dog’s sake). I used to think she was being a tad reactive — obviously I was wrong.
Criminy — I don’t have the patience nor the time to home school my kids. It’s time to wall off a select part of the country and let the right wing crazies have at it. They won’t have to pay taxes and they can do whatever they want without any interference from sane people. It’ll be our own little Lord of the Flies social experiment. Then after a 10 or 15 years, we can cut a hole in wall and let the survivors back in and see if they’ve learned their fucking lesson.
Brian CB
I grew up in South Carolina and live in Virginia. If these deep south states want to secede (Virginia won’t. We’re more normal now.) I think we ought to ask for some cash and let them go. Giving all the stupid people in the world some sort of homeland is a sure-fire way to get the rest of America back on track.
Don
Texas ruining textbooks for everyone is nothing new; I had teachers in high school in the 80s expanding on ideas or pointing out concrete facts that were expressed in a wishy-washy “some assert” in our textbooks.
I want to see open source texts and just-in-time printing kill off some of these clowns anyway. It’s insane how much some of these texts sell for. I’d forgive them for the price since the circulation isn’t Dan Brown level…. if they didn’t put out new editions incessantly despite no significant changes.
EvolutionaryDesign
@beltane: Teh crazy exists everywhere. It may be concentrated more in some states, but northern Cali has their share, so does upstate NY, NH, Eastern Washington, etc. They surround us.
MikeJ
@Sloth: So what’s your alternative? Use the shitty books written for morons?
Leelee for Obama
{{you’ll basically have the blue states studying one version, the red states another}}
Sadly, sloth, I’m not at all sure this does not already happen. When I see some of the arguments made about the Constitution, and the Civil War and Jim Crow, and MLK, and the Kennedys, I begin to believe that alternative history is the norm.
beltane
@Sloth: It would be easy to envision the northeastern states forming some kind of single payer network. We are close to Canada and not afraid of teh socialism like our southern neighbors.
Same goes for California and the Pacific northwest.
Ann B. Nonymous
For Texas, this is formalizing a rollback to the 1950s, one that their history classes in practice never bothered to rectify anyway. I don’t think Texas broke the 50% high school graduation rate until 1960, which explains people like Warren Chisum. Part of the long-term Texas GOP plan to provide Mexico and China with blonde sex slaves after the oil runs out.
But it’s disastrous for places that take their public education seriously.
burnspbesq
@Jacy:
“It’s time to wall off a select part of the country and let the right wing crazies have at it.”
Life imitates “District 9?”
JK
Texas should just go ahead and secede already. It’s clear that they’re not ready to move into the 21st century. They’re more comfortable living in the Dark Ages.
Sloth
@MikeJ:
There is no alternative with text books. As has been pointed out, it exists today, just maybe not so blatantly, but everyone anywhere who produces a text book slants it.
We could try introducing national text books. I really want to see what happens when Obama announces that one. Yikes.
Xenos
@Leelee for Obama: If you don’t want to live here, go to Canada, then. I have the guilt of bringing my wife here from Canada back in the early 90s – on the whole, it would have made more sense for me to move there with her, at least politically speaking.
My kids are proud of being American, but all they know is a pretty enlightened corner of rural New England. When they grow up they will have to face up to what this country has become, and they may well be pissed off.
I hope they don’t punch me in the face, even if I deserve it.
Sloth
Coventry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_%28short_story%29
me
They’re ahead of you.
Zifnab
This is going to be a clusterfuck. You’re going to have a shitting match between New York and Texas, Florida and California. It’s going to create an educational cast system that will be an embarrassment to the nation.
Is there anything in this country we’re not ready to politicize? We’ve got to rehabilitate Joesph McCarthy now? Really?! WHY?
The American Revolution and the Civil War have already been whitewashed all to hell. And that’s just in the US. I actually memorized the first line of my sister’s World History Book chapter on Asia. “The Chinese civilization emerged on the banks of the Yangze River. 3000 years later, Macro Polo arrived” and it picks up from there.
This country was practically founded on education. Universities are some of the oldest structures in the nation. And this is where we’re going with it? The mad leading the blind. Fuck it.
Brick Oven Bill
beltane says:
“It is heresy to suggest that Lincoln was wrong, but maybe Lincoln was wrong.”
Lincoln was a racist segregationist, really a pretty bad one, despite what beltane read in his school books. I do not understand why Barack’s chosen inauguration theme was Lincoln. Maybe he read those same school books and believed them.
Multiculturalists lionizing Lincoln are pretty ignorant.
Molly
Husband is a high school teacher in Texas. The textbooks tend to suck, so he doesn’t use them much, he has his own set of materials he chooses to teach from. The teachers know these people are nuts, so they tend to ignore them. Damned liberal educators. :)
The whole “students must be able to identify conservative groups,” no problem, he teaches them about those groups, and exactly the platforms they espouse in a factual, non-biased way. The general reaction of his students is “how stupid, what’s wrong with them?”
Trust the kids. They are becoming more and more informed about the world due to the internet, so their reaction to all of this tends to be the see the stupid very quickly. They’re not their parents. Their parents do not control the information flow to them any more, and I think that’s why so much of this hysteria is about. Heaven forbid kids see alternate viewpoints, think for themselves, or (gasp) e-mail people all over the world. But, that’s what they’re doing, they’re seeing reality, not just the message, and they’re the ones changing the world for us now.
The kids learn a heck of a lot more from wikipedia than their textbooks now. :)
Bootlegger
Strange, I don’t recall my textbooks being that partisan and I did first grade through masters degree in Texas schools. I remember the section on Vietnam and civil rights being kind of short, but in 1980 when I took Murkan History in Texas those events were recent and at the very end of the book. I do remember Texas History in 6th grade, where we definitely learned that Davey Crockett was a hero and not a suicidal insurgent. But other than that the whole thing seemed quite sanitized to me. Then again, I never really paid attention anyway.
JM
Lincoln was a racist segregationist
Which was a major step forward, at the time, yes. All caught up, now?
Warren Terra
For FSM’s sake, can we sind BOB away for another week? Lincoln wasn’t always admirable on race, especially early – except by comparison. The other side was maybe a wee bit worse on race, you think?
Polish the Guillotines
Fuck secession. Is there any way we can force these dipshits out of the Union? (Obligatory apologies to the Texans in the BJ virtual house).
And that goes triple for Florida. Have any two states wreaked more havoc on this country in modern times? I think not.
And if my state — California — can’t strong-arm the nonsense out of this bullshit proposal, then may the San Andreas and Hayward faults blow out a couple of 8-point-ohs at the same time.
I weep for the future.
Leelee for Obama
@Xenos: It is too late for that now, xenos. I don’t have skills they need and I have an entire family here. When I was 4, Pop had a teaching gig lined up at McGill and all he had to do was post bonds for my siblings and I, so we could maintain American citizenship(required then, or so I was told). I’m pissed over the spilt milk of my life, due to a decision not my own, that’s all. I love this Country cause it’s mine, damnit, but this kind of never-ending, embarrassingly stupid, and possibly dangerous bullshit makes me sad and pissed and wishing for something different. And don’t tell me I can make a difference. I’ve try to, everyday. I write LTEs, make phone calls, sign petitions, support candidates I want elected. I participate. Today is a crappy day, that’s all.
Regular Reader
So, keeping with the theme of right-wing craziness in the latest posts…are they any reasonable right-leaning websites anymore? I used to frequent the usuals (Powerline, Malkin, Hot Air) just to keep track of right-wing stances, but I frankly can’t take them seriously anymore.
I’ve been trying out New Majority, which seems promising. I’ve heard rumours of Charles Johnson breaking ranks, but from what I’ve seen, he’s still mostly in the crazy camp, if more piecemeal. I’m just looking for some intellectually honest, dialectical right-wing views, even if I don’t agree with them – am I stuck with Frum for the next four to eight years?
Bootlegger
@Brick Oven Bill: And yet he freed the slaves anyway. I think that is the point BOB, that despite the prevailing ideology at the time and political pressure to do nothing to upset the republic, Honest Abe instead did the right thing in the end. Sorry.
Jager
As a Texan friend of said, “The wingers have turned Texas into Mississippi with good roads and if the schools get any worse I’ll be sending my kids to school Nueva Laredo”.
wasabi gasp
If reality was as accurate as the bible, these folks wouldn’t have to fix it.
Bootlegger
@Molly: Very good point Molly, my kids’ bullshit detectors are far more developed than mine was at that age.
Scott
Some days, I wish I ran a textbook publishing company, ’cause I think I’d enjoy messing with them pretty hard. Like ship ’em some mockup textbooks with all the wingnutty goodness they want, get the approvals, then ship the real textbooks, which look the same, but have actual facts inside. The state school board would never notice, ’cause they’re so opposed to education, they avoid textbooks like the plague.
Jager
Imagine being a bright young Texan, a straight A, highschool quarterback and accepting a scholarship to UC Berkeley and then and only then finding out a democrat in a wheelchair fixed the depression and lead us to victory in WW2! Or that all those wide receivers you threw all those touchdowns to in high school wouldn’t have even been in your school if it wasn’t for those damned “Lib-ruls”…
Awesom0
Honestly, what the Federal Government needs to do vis-a-vis educational textbooks is to enact rules which encourage the use of voluntary consensus standards governing textbooks. Now, I know that “voluntary” sounds like a load of horseshit, so just bear me out here…
When standards are set – voluntary or not – they do exactly what their name implies; they set the standard.
Most standards used in the US are developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), a non-profit, non-governmental, private sector organization.
Their standards are created via technical committees comprised of interested parties (i.e., industry, government, academia, interested private citizens, etc). It is an open process in which you cannot bar participation.
For reasons too complicated to explain here, business usually respond to these standards and set practices accordingly.
If the US government (say the Department of Education) were to ever officially adopt voluntary consensus standards for textbook and require states to use them or risk losing funding, they could stop this nonsense in Texas from polluting the rest of our country.
As I noted earlier; the standards setting process is open to everyone. To become standards, a consensus has to be reached. While deeply conservative representatives may vote for them, there is no way they would ever get enough support nationally to get consensus.
Better yet, I guarantee you that most people (most importantly, those trying to put this shit in our textbooks) have no idea how standards work. If some members of Congress wanted to pass legislation requiring voluntary consensus standards for textbooks, most Republicans wouldn’t know what this really meant.
Better yet, those who do would be forced to make such a wonky case for opposing them, they’d never lose.
Meanwhile, those of us who aren’t pre-Enlightenment idiots could simply make the case that we’re demanding “standards” and “accountability” from our educators.
Since I am not going to proofread my post before posting, I hope it makes sense.
Again, this is an incredibly wonky and difficult point to make, but I promise it will work. I make my living developing standards (though, I do not work for ANSI, but for an international standards organization in Geneva).
DougJ
So, keeping with the theme of right-wing craziness in the latest posts…are they any reasonable right-leaning websites anymore?
New Majority and Daniel Larison.
Awesom0
@myself:
Better yet, those who do would be forced to make such a wonky case for opposing them, they’d never lose.
I meant to say, “…they’d never win
A la lanterne les aristos!
Maybe it’s a desperate last g(r)asp? My understanding it that the demographics trends in Texas are slowly shifting it leftwards to the point where a few presidential elections down the road it might be up for grabs.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
The Saff
@JK: I’m OK with Texas leaving the union, no offense to our Balloon Juice friends who live there.
Bostondreams
For those interested in correcting mistaken impressions of history, one book I have my Advanced Placement kids read is ‘Lies My Teacher Told Me’ by James Loewen. It’s a great book that explores and explains what textbooks in history get wrong and why we teach history like we do.
licensed to kill time
I haven’t had time to read all the comments so maybe this has been said, but – those people who think it’s Obama who’s trying to indoctrinate the kids?! oughta read this, but of course, this is indoctrination that they’d agree with so it’s all good.
The Saff
@Molly: OK, that makes me feel a little better. I don’t have (human) kids so I’m not sure how all this wingnuttery affects them. But your assurances that kids are smarter than their closed-minded parents gives me some hope for the future. I truly do feel sorry for kids that grow up with wingnut parents.
Llelldorin
@Jager:
Or discovering that UC Berkeley has rescinded your admission because your high-school history coursework doesn’t meet UC standards.
Higher-ed history departments can and should push back against this nonsense by refusing to accredit the curriculum.
Xenos
@Jager: I heard that this has come up in California. People have homeschooled their kids, or sent them to special Christianist schools with fake history and science curricula. When the kids apply to the UC system they have to show the lesson plans, and the kids get bounced – UC simply does not recognize the high school education even though local authorities granted a GED.
Zifnab
@licensed to kill time: Indoctrination = Saying things we disagree with.
There are so many hot button issues now. If you talk bad about torture, you’re pushing an agenda. If you say anything bad about Iraq, you’re pushing an agenda. If you mention health care, you’re pushing an agenda. If you mention checking tire pressure, you’re pushing an agenda. I will wait with baited breath to hear Obama reprimanded for whatever wild out of context grab they can make.
Polish the Guillotines
@Llelldorin:
Exactly. And elementary, junior high and high school teachers should refuse to use any books like this proposed drivel.
freelancer
Can we wall off Arkansas first?
http://www.theagitator.com/2009/09/04/just-wait-until-you-see-how-they-execute-a-search-warrant/
“Hey, buddy, where’s the fire?”
licensed to kill time
@Zifnab:
Gads, and silly me, I thought that Presidents got elected with the expectation that they would try to enact the agenda they campaigned on. Who knew that once in office you’re supposed to adopt the other side’s agenda?
jean
“went through a phase of being deeply bothered by the fact that the United States doesn’t function as a post-Enlightenment first world country.” Dougj
Yep, we’re all third worlders now. We just don’t know it. I’m thinking, though, that more and more people are catching on.
ChrisB
This reminds me of the time my son’s eighth grade American history teacher taught the class that Thomas Jefferson defeated Alexander Hamilton for the presidency in 1800. On the test, when my son answered that Jefferson had defeated John Adams, his answer was marked wrong. When we looked at the test, which the teacher had composed herself, we found that it contained 22 spelling and grammatical errors.
I’m not sure what was worse, that the teacher was so bad or that we were the only family that noticed.
ChrisB
@Llelldorin:
Not if you’re a star quarterback.
Llelldorin
@ChrisB:
I’m not sure that you’re familiar with the traditions of Golden Bear football, when you say that. The “star quarterback” is not really a species we’re familiar with.
(OK, so we’ve had a few good seasons recently, but c’mon. Star quarterbacks who are moving to the west coast generally wind up Trojans or Bruins, not Golden Bears.)
noncarborundum
@Zifnab:
Micro Polo had actually arrived several years earlier, but he was so small that no one noticed.
freelancer
@noncarborundum:
I fucking love this blog.
Leelee for Obama
@freelancer: Me too! I laughing so hard, my stomach hurts!
GusThePrimate
This is the kind of rubbish you get after millions have kids have been “educated” in all those private Christian academies. Kids who are indoctrinated with lies grow up to be adults who can’t discern the truth.
Time to end tax breaks for churchs. Time to stop giving high school diplomas to home schooled and private school students unless their curricula mirrors the local public system’s.
GusThePrimate
Oh… what about states like New York and California? They have more people than Texas. Presumably, their textbook orders carry a lot of clout, too.
Comrade Darkness
Why in the world are we wasting public money on text books. Why hasn’t the open source/open text movement put them all out of business?
Sloth
Damn good question.
Jager
Wait a minute…what about Joe Kapp? didn’t he kick some ass for the Golden Bears?
tc125231
The US doesn’t function as a post-enlightenment first world country? Surely you jest?
The U.S. doesn’t function at all. It’s on a long slow slide off that hill built by our forefathers.
Nice work, chumps.