Texas schools board rewrites US history

[Elfdart]

I'm more worried about the parents of the kids than the actual politicians pushing this shit. Why don't they complain? Do they honestly not give a shit what is taught or not to their children? Or worse yet, do they agree with it?

If the populace had half a clue they wouldn't let such a thing happen quietly, it's that cluelessness that's the problem, not the typical wailing fundies that want to run for office.

First of all, the fundies agree with it. The rest don't give a shit. The well-to-do send their kids to private schools anyway (it's easier than fighting fundies at school board meetings and in the long run, less expensive), and the booboise looks at the public school system as government-sponsored day care.

I'm glad there's a bill in California to try to do something. I hope it passes and I hope other states do likewise.

[Lost Soal]

Clearly some people do care since Day 1 of the Texas Board of Education meeting went on until 1am.
As for the slave trade, more than just the name was being decided.

The Great Civil War Debate

This one went on all day, from kindergarten right on up through 12th grade. The argument, of course, was over slavery, and the role it played as a cause for the Civil War. One board member, clearly frustrated by the ongoing claim that slavery wasn't really too much of a contributing factor, finally said straight up "It was all about slavery. That's ALL it was about. You can call it what you want, it was about slavery."

Sadly, her point was not well taken. Texas children will learn from the time they enter school until the time they graduate, that the causes of the Civil War, in the order of importance, were sectionalism, states' rights and slavery.

I have a confession to make...

I am insane. I have to be. Yes, I did turn on the live stream of the Texas Board of Education curriculum standards meeting at 9AM Thursday morning and yes, I stayed with it until 6pm, live-tweeting the whole thing until I could stand it no more. Still not content with the assault on my sensibilities, I came back for more at around 8pm, until it finally adjourned at 10pm my time, 1am Texas time.

I did it for you, all for you...

Bless their hearts....

Here's my biggest takeaway, and I mean this with all sincerity and respect: These people should not be doing this. They just shouldn't be. Not because they're evil. They're not. Well, maybe some of them are just a little bit, but more fundamentally they don't have the first clue as to how absolutely screwed up these curriculum standards are getting. Forget the textbooks, no teacher -- not even one with a masters from Harvard or University of Texas or ANYWHERE -- could possibly teach what they've put together.

It's incoherent. It makes no sense. They've created something that I should be able to define without resorting to NSFW terms, especially a compound word that begins with the word "cluster" and ends with an additional four letters, but really, that's what they've made. A colossal one, even.

Some highs (or lows, or you'll wish you were high)

Don't acknowledge truth without a tinge of pettiness

While it was certainly big of them to include a standard acknowledging the 2008 election of the first black President of the United States, it was not without moments. One of the conservative members thought that would be fine as long as he was included as "Barack HUSSEIN Obama". There was a bit of a verbal tussle over this as the more reasonable members suggested that might be just a little bit petty. Ultimately, the Henry Cabot Lodge false equivalency failed, and they agreed to Barack H. Obama. Grudgingly.

What's a little eugenics between friends?

After tonight, there is an extra word nestled in the following standard:

analyze causes and effects of events and social issues such as immigration, Social Darwinism, race relations, nativism, the Red Scare, Prohibition, and the changing role of women; and...

It reads this way now:

analyze causes and effects of events and social issues such as immigration, eugenics, Social Darwinism, race relations, nativism, the Red Scare, Prohibition, and the changing role of women; and

That's right. Our kids in Texas will possibly learn about eugenics. Why do I say possibly? Because there are two ways to word a standard. One is to use the term including, which means everything may be on a standardized test and therefore must be covered. The other is to use the term "such as", which means the teacher must teach the concept but has the option to use some or all of the terms.

It sounds like a benign enough compromise until you begin to consider the insidious ways it was used to denigrate in some cases and slide references into the material in others. Like eugenics, for example. Or to downgrade the elevation of our first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, to a "such as" when the original list without her was an "include". But, they did manage to remove Phyllis Schlafly from that same list, so there's that, anyway.

Speaking of Phyllis Schlafly...

Yeah, not so fast. Some members tried to apply the "such as" standard to the Contract on with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association as examples of "a conservative resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s." Alas, no luck. They remain as "including", so they will all have to be taught. Dolores Huerta, Hispanic heroine of farm workers everywhere, however, was dropped like a cold stone because (lean in close, now) we can't tell the 3rd graders she was a...socialist. No socialist heroines in Texas. Only confederate heroes there.

The Great Civil War Debate

This one went on all day, from kindergarten right on up through 12th grade. The argument, of course, was over slavery, and the role it played as a cause for the Civil War. One board member, clearly frustrated by the ongoing claim that slavery wasn't really too much of a contributing factor, finally said straight up "It was all about slavery. That's ALL it was about. You can call it what you want, it was about slavery."

Sadly, her point was not well taken. Texas children will learn from the time they enter school until the time they graduate, that the causes of the Civil War, in the order of importance, were sectionalism, states' rights and slavery.

Comic relief: Probably the best moment of the whole stupid debate was when one male board member referred to sectionalism as "sexualism."

Side arguments: Whether Jefferson Davis' inaugural address should be studied and analyzed alongside Abraham Lincoln's. The board concludes that yes, it should. Also, should Jefferson Davis be characterized as a "hero"? Yes, the board says, he should. Finally, should Confederate generals be included on a list of "heroes of the Civil War"? Yes, the board says, oh hell, yes. All hail, Confederate heroes, kids. Because we just don't have enough of them.

Immigrants (legal and otherwise), totalitarians and assorted sordid details

Immigration - when one board member proposed removing the term "illegal" from a standard about demographic shifts as a result of "legal or illegal immigration", there is discussion. One member rightly points out that with regard to demographics, the issue of legality is not really relevant. Off with her head! The word "illegal" remains, because Don McElroy, Mr. Conservative Dentist who loves his country, likes it just fine that way. Seriously. I heard him say so.

McElroy also wants all Texas schoolchildren to love their country as much as he does, so he includes language to add a standard to "describe the optimism of the many immigrants who were thankful to find a better life in America." It passes, along with my kidney stone and my optimism, which was here before it wasn't.

Entitlements bad, free enterprise good Another McElroy classic: Discuss alternatives regarding long term entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, given the decreasing worker to retiree ratio.

It lives, but in a slightly revised form. Now students will "discuss the solvency of long term entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare."

Mega-win there. Gets "entitlements" as the concept, along with the notion that we're all gonna bankrupt the children. Come over here, little kids, let me bankrupt you. Please.

When is a totalitarian unlimited?

When the definition of "unlimited government" is totalitarian, and the definition of limited government is constitutional, that's when.

What the Tea Party likes

Evidently the Tea Party, who was consulted for some 5th grade standards, likes the characterization of capitalism as "free enterprise" when framed against communism and socialism as economic systems. First they argue that communism and socialism are interchangeable. Then they argue that students in the fifth grade -- FIFTH GRADE, FOLKS -- should have to adhere to this standard:

explain the importance of morality and ethics in maintaining a functional free enterprise system.

I have an active imagination, but there is no way I could make this stuff up. Not even a fraction of it. Only wingnuts and teabaggers have this kind of imagination.

Make it stop, she whined...

The thing is, after awhile it's just mind-numbingly insane, and I have to wonder why any teacher would bother for the small paycheck, sneery attitude, and screwed-up job description. When these standards are voted on as a whole, they will be in effect for ten years. TEN YEARS. They'll be in effect, but they're unintelligible. Seriously, there IS NO FREE ENTERPRISE economic system. NONE. Zero. It's invented. But these clowns will have students make it all up, despite the fact that they live in a world with boundaries that stretch outside of Texas.

Like I said, this group has no business doing this. They just don't. The member who went looking for his Doritos during the break after announcing it first should lead them all to the Promised Land of Limited Government and Hands-Off curriculum standards.

For you, the faithful here on Crooks and Liars, I will be back listening to the live stream again today. So now comes the pitch...will you please donate?

[Patrick Degan]

The Texas BoE probably wouldn't have appreciated a reading of the main argument of the Texas Ordinance of Secession:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

They also probably wouldn't have liked being reminded that the duly elected, legal, Unionist governor, Sam Houston —one of the founders of the original republic, mind you— was deposed in what amounted to a coup d'etat by a secessionist rump legislature in order to take Texas out of the Union.

[Lost Soal]

Well it passed anyway.
bbc

Education officials in the US state of Texas have adopted new guidelines to the school curriculum, which critics say will politicise teaching.

The changes include teaching that the UN could be a threat to American freedom, and that the Founding Fathers may not have intended a complete separation of church and state.

Critics say the changes are ideological and distort history.

However, proponents argue they are redressing a liberal bias in education.

Analysts say Texas, with five million schoolchildren, wields substantial influence on school curriculums across the US.

The BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani in Los Angeles says publishers of textbooks used nationally often print what Texas wants to teach.
Jefferson out

Students in Texas will now be taught the benefits of US free-market economics and how government taxation can harm economic progress.

They will study how American ideals benefit the world but organisations such as the UN could be a threat to personal freedom.

And Thomas Jefferson has been dropped from a list of enlightenment thinkers in the world-history curriculum, despite being one of the Founding Fathers who is credited with developing the idea that church and state should be separate.

The doctrine has become a cornerstone of US government, but some religious groups and some members of the Texas Education Board disagree, our correspondent says.

The board, which is dominated by Christian conservatives, voted nine-to-five in favour of adopting the new curriculum for both primary and secondary schools.

But during the discussions some of the most controversial ideas were dropped - including a proposal to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade".

Opponents of the changes worry that textbooks sold in other states will be written to comply with the new Texas standards, meaning that the alterations could have an impact on curriculums nationwide.

[Srelex]

You know what, America? Just fucking give Texas to Mexico already.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Students in Texas will now be taught the benefits of US free-market economics and how government taxation can harm economic progress.

Dear god can you just FEEL the conservative brain washing? Imagine a whole generation of kids brought up by School books that teach the Evils of (gasp) regulating companies!! Or (Gasp) using Taxes to earn revenues for federal programs... The HORROR

[Samuel]

The changes include teaching that the UN could be a threat to American freedom, and that the Founding Fathers may not have intended a complete separation of church and state.

We have veto power over the UN. This is inane. As for not wanting a complete seperation of church and state, that is true. They just wanted to completely eliminate clerical political power and religious strife caused by trying to get referential treatment. You know, secularism.

However, proponents argue they are redressing a liberal bias in education.

There is a difference between correcting errors and blatant lies.

But during the discussions some of the most controversial ideas were dropped - including a proposal to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade".

But that would be perfect! Not only did we buy slaves, we sold the most violent groups weapons, helping to increase internal strife.

[Alyeska]

You know what, America? Just fucking give Texas to Mexico already.

Mexico doesn't want Texas.

Link

[SirNitram]

Now, the disease will spread. Texas makes ALOT of textbooks, and they get sold to other states.

[SCRawl]

Is this a likely scenario, come September?

1. One (or more) teachers decide to flip the bird to the new curriculum and teach the truth to his students.
2. Some of these teachers are terminated or otherwise disciplined.
3. The ACLU (or a more appropriate body) funds a lawsuit to reinstate the teacher(s), effectively invalidating the new curriculum (assuming the plaintiffs win).

It's a stupid and horrendously expensive way to resolve this conflict, but it's a really fucking stupid conflict to create in the first place.

[Alyeska]

Now, the disease will spread. Texas makes ALOT of textbooks, and they get sold to other states.

California is in the best position to fight this. They are larger. And they are starting to work on laws to deliberately counteract Texas. We need to get the East Coast to join this effort. You get enough large population states acting against Texas and you can neutralize this as a larger threat.

[MKSheppard]

But during the discussions some of the most controversial ideas were dropped - including a proposal to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade".

That's how it was referred to (although with some different wording) in Montgomery County MD one of the most liberal districts in the nation when I was a student in the 1990s. Basically the teacher drew on the blackboard a crude drawing of the US Eastern Seaboard, Africa, some squiggles representing the caribbean, and then drew a triangle connecting the Eastern US with the Caribbean and Western Africa, with the different sides labelled SLAVES, RUM, MOLASSES.

[Thanas]

But during the discussions some of the most controversial ideas were dropped - including a proposal to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade".

That's how it was referred to (although with some different wording) in Montgomery County MD one of the most liberal districts in the nation when I was a student in the 1990s. Basically the teacher drew on the blackboard a crude drawing of the US Eastern Seaboard, Africa, some squiggles representing the caribbean, and then drew a triangle connecting the Eastern US with the Caribbean and Western Africa, with the different sides labelled SLAVES, RUM, MOLASSES.

Indeed, it is the correct term for it.

[DPDarkPrimus]

So who are they going to say wrote the Declaration of Independence?

[Lost Soal]

But during the discussions some of the most controversial ideas were dropped - including a proposal to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade".

That's how it was referred to (although with some different wording) in Montgomery County MD one of the most liberal districts in the nation when I was a student in the 1990s. Basically the teacher drew on the blackboard a crude drawing of the US Eastern Seaboard, Africa, some squiggles representing the caribbean, and then drew a triangle connecting the Eastern US with the Caribbean and Western Africa, with the different sides labelled SLAVES, RUM, MOLASSES.

If the post I quoted earlier is accurate, then the name is largely irrelevant and pales in comparison to claiming that slavery was a minimal contributing factor to the Civil War.

[Covenant]

This is just an abysmal result. I was taught the triangular trade, but what they're trying to do is minimize slavery's impact, when it really was a driving social and economic institution from the inception of the colonial period all the way until today, apparently, as we still have self-styled "charitable" christian conservatives looking to sweep it under the rug.

Burying the past of the slave trade, the civil war, and the civil rights movement is a clear line of attack on teaching about the history of racial exploitation and bigotry that runs through American society, which also serves to mean we will learn nothing from it, and continue it. While I'm comfortable saying they're just racist idiots, you would think that this wouldn't be so uniformly supported, even down there.

[MKSheppard]

Link to WaPo Article

The new standards say that the McCarthyism of the 1950s was later vindicated -- something most historians deny

Those "historians" can go fuck themselves. My late friend Edward S. Milenky got me a very thick book about ten years ago that was printed jointly by the CIA and NSA in 1995.

It's title?

VENONA: SOVIET ESPIONAGE AND THE AMERICAN RESPONSE 1939-1957 by Robert L Benson and Michael Warner.

It is about 1.5" inches of declassified VENONA transcripts showing that the Soviet Union had large amounts of operatives operating in the US; including a quite large percentage of those who were accused by the HUAC of being Communists.

Among the declassified transcripts are ones involving an operative identifed as ALES...who was none other than Alger Hiss.

It's also worth noting that HUAC continued on long after Joe McCarthy -- my late neighbor Alma Phaff who used to live across the street at my last house -- worked on HUAC in Congress until she retired IIRC.

draw an equivalency between Jefferson Davis's and Abraham Lincoln's inaugural addresses

I like this.

Put them side by side; next to a sidebar listing the fact that the US and CS constitutions were 99.5% similar, and then list the differences between them -- Hint, they involve slavery being explictly defined in teh CS constitution.

and include a long list of Confederate officials about whom students must learn.

I would be interested in seeing this supposedly "long" list.

In my ideal textbook, I would contrast the effective leadership that was achieved by Lincoln's Cabinet -- particularly SecWar Stanton -- with that of the ineffective leadership that plagued Davis' Cabinet.

that international institutions such as the United Nations imperil American sovereignty

You mean like the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms?

Arms Control Org Link

Bolton further outlined “redline” issues that Washington viewed as unacceptable for inclusion in the conference’s program of action. These included restricting civilian ownership of weapons, limiting the legal trade and manufacture of small arms, restricting small arms sales to nongovernmental entities, committing to begin discussions on legally binding agreements, holding a mandatory review conference, and promoting international advocacy by nongovernmental and international organizations

There's probably a few more -- but the UN PoA on Small Arms and Light Weapons is the one that leaps out at me.

[MKSheppard]

Oh yes, I would also point out that the CSA instituted the first draft system in American History. The book/movie COLD MOUNTAIN is a pretty good depiction of how life was in a lot of the Confederacy outside the major cities during the war -- you had roving draft gangs made up of pure thugs who would look for supposedly healthy men.. grab them, beat them up, claim they were deserters, etc and then ship them off to the CS Army.

[Samuel]

It is about 1.5" inches of declassified VENONA transcripts showing that the Soviet Union had large amounts of operatives operating in the US; including a quite large percentage of those who were accused by the HUAC of being Communists.

Could you be specific? Were these people spying for the Soviet Union, where they part od organizations lobbying for them, etc? How much of an impact would they have had? What proportion where innocent people? What proportion of comparable organizations had the same amount of red sympathizers?

Bolton further outlined “redline” issues that Washington viewed as unacceptable for inclusion in the conference’s program of action. These included restricting civilian ownership of weapons, limiting the legal trade and manufacture of small arms, restricting small arms sales to nongovernmental entities, committing to begin discussions on legally binding agreements, holding a mandatory review conference, and promoting international advocacy by nongovernmental and international organizations

There's probably a few more -- but the UN PoA on Small Arms and Light Weapons is the one that leaps out at me.

Shep, there is nothing that requires the US to abide by it. It doesn't impair American soverignity.

[Elfdart]

Link to WaPo Article

The new standards say that the McCarthyism of the 1950s was later vindicated -- something most historians deny

Those "historians" can go fuck themselves. My late friend Edward S. Milenky got me a very thick book about ten years ago that was printed jointly by the CIA and NSA in 1995.

Which should be an obvious sign that it's a massive pile of horseshit. These are the same charlatans who claimed Iraq had all those nuclear, biological and chemical weapons they could use against us. Seven years and a million lives later and they still haven't been found, now have they?

It's title?

VENONA: SOVIET ESPIONAGE AND THE AMERICAN RESPONSE 1939-1957 by Robert L Benson and Michael Warner.

It is about 1.5" inches of declassified VENONA transcripts showing that the Soviet Union had large amounts of operatives operating in the US; including a quite large percentage of those who were accused by the HUAC of being Communists.

McCarthy wasn't a member of HUAC.

Among the declassified transcripts are ones involving an operative identifed as ALES...who was none other than Alger Hiss.

According to a note scribbled in the margin next to the word "Ales". No one knows who wrote it or more importantly, when.

It's also worth noting that HUAC continued on long after Joe McCarthy -- my late neighbor Alma Phaff who used to live across the street at my last house -- worked on HUAC in Congress until she retired IIRC.

And? All these furballs you've coughed up prove what, exactly? McCarthy claimed that the trial of Nazi SS men who murdered American POWs at Malmedy was a show trial orchestrated by DA JOOOOOOOOZ. Which was a lie. He also claimed that a blank sheet of paper he held up was a list of over 200 known Soviet spies. That was a lie, too. So was his claim that Gen. George Marshall was one of Stalin's henchmen. The most insidious lie of all is the notion that the Red Scare of the late 40s and early 50s had much of anything to do with Russian spying. In other words, McCarthy was just a deranged right-wing bullshitter. No wonder you like him.

[Guardsman Bass]

I would be interested in seeing this supposedly "long" list.

In my ideal textbook, I would contrast the effective leadership that was achieved by Lincoln's Cabinet -- particularly SecWar Stanton -- with that of the ineffective leadership that plagued Davis' Cabinet.

Even better would be for the students to read the Confederate declaration of independence. It's almost impossible to read that and come away without realizing that slavery - not "states' rights", not tariffs (although they did have some role) - was the heart of the reason why the South was seceding.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Even better would be for the students to read the Confederate declaration of independence. It's almost impossible to read that and come away without realizing that slavery - not "states' rights", not tariffs (although they did have some role) - was the heart of the reason why the South was seceding.

The word "Slave' is mentioned 18 times in the document.
The word "Right" is mentioned 19.

So they can;'t talk about rights without talking about slaves. Nice

[Guardsman Bass]

Even better would be for the students to read the Confederate declaration of independence. It's almost impossible to read that and come away without realizing that slavery - not "states' rights", not tariffs (although they did have some role) - was the heart of the reason why the South was seceding.

The word "Slave' is mentioned 18 times in the document.
The word "Right" is mentioned 19.

So they can;'t talk about rights without talking about slaves. Nice

Not to mention that all that "states' rights" stuff is belied by the fact that much of the justification consists of them whining about the fact that the northern states aren't returning their property, are allowing abolitionists to live there and publish, and are passing laws to try and blunt federal laws protecting the interests of the slave states.

[Patrick Degan]

Even better would be for the students to read the Confederate declaration of independence. It's almost impossible to read that and come away without realizing that slavery - not "states' rights", not tariffs (although they did have some role) - was the heart of the reason why the South was seceding.

The word "Slave' is mentioned 18 times in the document.
The word "Right" is mentioned 19.

So they can;'t talk about rights without talking about slaves. Nice

I'm sure the plan in that case would be to simply mention the Confederate Declaration of Independence but not actually assign it for reading.

[Liberty]

The new standards say that the McCarthyism of the 1950s was later vindicated -- something most historians deny

Those "historians" can go fuck themselves. My late friend Edward S. Milenky got me a very thick book about ten years ago that was printed jointly by the CIA and NSA in 1995.

It's title?

VENONA: SOVIET ESPIONAGE AND THE AMERICAN RESPONSE 1939-1957 by Robert L Benson and Michael Warner.

It is about 1.5" inches of declassified VENONA transcripts showing that the Soviet Union had large amounts of operatives operating in the US; including a quite large percentage of those who were accused by the HUAC of being Communists.

Among the declassified transcripts are ones involving an operative identifed as ALES...who was none other than Alger Hiss.

Actually, not everyone agrees that ALES was Hiss...

Of course historians know about Venona. I learned about Venona in class at university. Yes, Venona shows that there were Soviet spies in the U.S.. But large amounts of them? No. Soviet spies? Yes. Duh. Just like we had spies in the USSR. It was the Cold War, dammit. No historian denies that there were Soviet spies, just as Venona shows.

As every historian knows, however, this does not vindicate either McCarthy or McCarthyism (with its smear tactics and denial of civil rights). McCarthy was pulling his imaginary lists of high profile communists out of his ass. McCarthy was making shit up and nothing he did did any good.

Some Communists spies? Yes. McCarthy vindicated? No.