Scholars: Proposed Texas Textbooks Distort History, Religion

[Lakhota]

Another battle could be brewing over Texas textbooks, this time because scholars say the proposed lessons distort history.

New social studies books, on which the Texas State Board of Education is set to vote in November, promote pro-Christian religious and conservative political biases, according to a report released Wednesday from the nonprofit Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. History scholars argue in the report that a number of the books under consideration contain misleading information on topics like America’s founding and world religions.

The textbooks on American government, U.S. and world history, and religion in world history and geography were submitted by publishers including Pearson Education, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill Education. They were designed to fit Texas' curriculum standards for history, which some critics have charged contain their own conservative biases.

Ten scholars, including professors from Southern Methodist University and doctoral students from the University of Texas at Austin, were contracted by the Texas Freedom Network to review the textbooks. While the experts praised some of the books for navigating the state standards in a fair way, they criticized others for capitulating to political concerns and disregarding evidence.

"In all fairness, it's clear that the publishers struggled with these flawed standards and still managed to do a good job in some areas," said Kathy Miller, president of the TFN Education Fund, in a statement. "On the other hand, a number of textbook passages essentially reflect the ideological beliefs of politicians on the state board rather than sound scholarship and factual history."

Emile Lester, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, took issue with much of the content he saw in the U.S. government textbooks. "The [State Board of Education] and these textbooks have collaborated to make students' knowledge of American history a casualty of the culture wars," he wrote in the report.

Lester specifically criticized a proposed Pearson textbook for "a treatment of affirmative action [that] verges on the offensive." He mentioned two cartoons (see below) in which space aliens discuss affirmative action. In a call with reporters on Wednesday, he said those cartoons "imply that recipients of affirmative action ... are un-American."

More: Texas Textbook Battle Heats Up With Claims Of Conservative Bias

Is this another Texas textbook massacre? Why do Texas Conservative keep trying to distort/rewrite history?

Texas Textbook MASSACRE: 'Ultraconservatives' Approve Radical Changes To State Education Curriculum

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change - The New York Times

"The Revisionaries", or The Texas Textbook Massacre

 

[OriginalShroom]

Waaahhhhhh The Lefties don't like American History... Waaaaaaaaaahhhh

 

[Dot Com]

Waaahhhhhh The Lefties don't like American History... Waaaaaaaaaahhhh

OP starts a thread w/ 4 sources and this is your reasoned response?

 

[JakeStarkey]

We had this problem 8 or 9 years ago, when I was a school board president in East Texas. When the college teachers at the local center asked how they were to teach their distance learning credit classes at our HS, I told them to make sure they told the students what the State Board thought those points that should be considered, then to teach as they would at the college.

In other words, if the state thought Joe McCarthy's role should be reconsidered, the prof told the statements that in a sentence, then taught as they always had taught Joe McCarthy: a great danger to American civil liberties and a reactionary who was willing to smear others for political profit, as well as a syphilitic alcoholic in the end.

I thought that was fair.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

Another battle could be brewing over Texas textbooks, this time because scholars say the proposed lessons distort history.

New social studies books, on which the Texas State Board of Education is set to vote in November, promote pro-Christian religious and conservative political biases, according to a report released Wednesday from the nonprofit Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. History scholars argue in the report that a number of the books under consideration contain misleading information on topics like America’s founding and world religions.

The textbooks on American government, U.S. and world history, and religion in world history and geography were submitted by publishers including Pearson Education, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill Education. They were designed to fit Texas' curriculum standards for history, which some critics have charged contain their own conservative biases.

Ten scholars, including professors from Southern Methodist University and doctoral students from the University of Texas at Austin, were contracted by the Texas Freedom Network to review the textbooks. While the experts praised some of the books for navigating the state standards in a fair way, they criticized others for capitulating to political concerns and disregarding evidence.

"In all fairness, it's clear that the publishers struggled with these flawed standards and still managed to do a good job in some areas," said Kathy Miller, president of the TFN Education Fund, in a statement. "On the other hand, a number of textbook passages essentially reflect the ideological beliefs of politicians on the state board rather than sound scholarship and factual history."

Emile Lester, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, took issue with much of the content he saw in the U.S. government textbooks. "The [State Board of Education] and these textbooks have collaborated to make students' knowledge of American history a casualty of the culture wars," he wrote in the report.

Lester specifically criticized a proposed Pearson textbook for "a treatment of affirmative action [that] verges on the offensive." He mentioned two cartoons (see below) in which space aliens discuss affirmative action. In a call with reporters on Wednesday, he said those cartoons "imply that recipients of affirmative action ... are un-American."

More: Texas Textbook Battle Heats Up With Claims Of Conservative Bias

Is this another Texas textbook massacre? Why do Texas Conservative keep trying to distort/rewrite history?

Texas Textbook MASSACRE: 'Ultraconservatives' Approve Radical Changes To State Education Curriculum

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change - The New York Times

"The Revisionaries", or The Texas Textbook Massacre

Here's a couple of the complaints as listed in your first link

Board members argued about the classification of historic periods (still B.C. and A.D., rather than B.C.E. and C.E.); whether students should be required to explain the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on global politics (they will); and whether former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir should be required learning (she will).


What a bunch of pussies you liberals are.

 

[bodecea]

We had this problem 8 or 9 years ago, when I was a school board president in East Texas. When the college teachers at the local center asked how they were to teach their distance learning credit classes at our HS, I told them to make sure they told the students what the State Board thought those points that should be considered, then to teach as they would at the college.

In other words, if the state thought Joe McCarthy's role should be reconsidered, the prof told the statements that in a sentence, then taught as they always had taught Joe McCarthy: a great danger to American civil liberties and a reactionary who was willing to smear others for political profit, as well as a syphilitic alcoholic in the end.

I thought that was fair.

Totally fair.

I wonder if they, in Texas history, talk about how the Texicans rebelled partially because they wanted to renig on their promises to convert to Roman Catholicism and get rid of their slaves.

Also I wonder if they talk about how the Republic of Texas BEGGED the U.S. to annex them for 10 years because they were flat broke.

 

[DGS49]

The OP is incomplete without a couple of specific examples of "falsehoods" demanded by the school boards. If they make college professors uncomfortable, that could very well be a good thing.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

The OP is incomplete without a couple of specific examples of "falsehoods" demanded by the school boards. If they make college professors uncomfortable, that could very well be a good thing.

There are some examples in the link, I pointed out three of them. They are ridiculous.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

I find it amusing that leftists are complaining about conservative bias in education considering how badly leftism has infested academia from kindergarten to college.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

I find it amusing that leftists are complaining about conservative bias in education considering how badly leftism has infested academia from kindergarten to college.

Seriously, society would be better off without any dumbshit who has either the time or the desire to complain that B.C. and A.D. are in history books.

 

[bripat9643]

We had this problem 8 or 9 years ago, when I was a school board president in East Texas. When the college teachers at the local center asked how they were to teach their distance learning credit classes at our HS, I told them to make sure they told the students what the State Board thought those points that should be considered, then to teach as they would at the college.

In other words, if the state thought Joe McCarthy's role should be reconsidered, the prof told the statements that in a sentence, then taught as they always had taught Joe McCarthy: a great danger to American civil liberties and a reactionary who was willing to smear others for political profit, as well as a syphilitic alcoholic in the end.

I thought that was fair.

You mean they continued to spout leftwing lies and propaganda.

 

[bripat9643]

The OP is incomplete without a couple of specific examples of "falsehoods" demanded by the school boards. If they make college professors uncomfortable,that could very well be a good thing.

The main complaint appears to be the fact that several cartoons in one of the textbooks makes fun of cherished liberal programs like Affirmative Action. I recall when I was in high school learning about the 1920s that the textbook and the instructor ridiculed the president's Coolidge and Harding and the policy of laizzes faire.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

I find it amusing that leftists are complaining about conservative bias in education considering how badly leftism has infested academia from kindergarten to college.

Correcting the right wing bias in high schools.

Problem solved.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Totally fair.

I wonder if they, in Texas history, talk about how the Texicans rebelled partially because they wanted to renig on their promises to convert to Roman Catholicism and get rid of their slaves.

Also I wonder if they talk about how the Republic of Texas BEGGED the U.S. to annex them for 10 years because they were flat broke.

We had one of the identify the illegal immigrants from the South into Texas as "dixie backs" because they had to swim the Sabine or the Red to enter the Mexican province. She also told them many of the legals did abandon the RC faith and had kept slaves illegally. She also told them that Texas was a conquest by war, and the Arabs had failed that right as Israel clobbered them in the holy land. Interesting.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I find it amusing that leftists are complaining about conservative bias in education considering how badly leftism has infested academia from kindergarten to college.

You have not been a part of Texas or Kansas public education during the last ten years, then.

 

[JakeStarkey]

You mean they continued to spout leftwing lies and propaganda.

In other words, yes, Joe McCarthy was a great danger to the American Republic, and for the likes of you, he would have had you arrested, interrogated, and returned to Fargo.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I find it amusing that leftists are complaining about conservative bias in education considering how badly leftism has infested academia from kindergarten to college.

Correcting the right wing bias in high schools.

Problem solved.

Shove the leftist bullshit imposed in the state schools back up your ass. Problem halfway solved. Universal school choice. Lefty lies can't compete. Problem solved.

 

[rdean]

Waaahhhhhh The Lefties don't like American History... Waaaaaaaaaahhhh

To the right wing, propaganda IS education.

 

[rdean]

Another battle could be brewing over Texas textbooks, this time because scholars say the proposed lessons distort history.

New social studies books, on which the Texas State Board of Education is set to vote in November, promote pro-Christian religious and conservative political biases, according to a report released Wednesday from the nonprofit Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. History scholars argue in the report that a number of the books under consideration contain misleading information on topics like America’s founding and world religions.

The textbooks on American government, U.S. and world history, and religion in world history and geography were submitted by publishers including Pearson Education, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill Education. They were designed to fit Texas' curriculum standards for history, which some critics have charged contain their own conservative biases.

Ten scholars, including professors from Southern Methodist University and doctoral students from the University of Texas at Austin, were contracted by the Texas Freedom Network to review the textbooks. While the experts praised some of the books for navigating the state standards in a fair way, they criticized others for capitulating to political concerns and disregarding evidence.

"In all fairness, it's clear that the publishers struggled with these flawed standards and still managed to do a good job in some areas," said Kathy Miller, president of the TFN Education Fund, in a statement. "On the other hand, a number of textbook passages essentially reflect the ideological beliefs of politicians on the state board rather than sound scholarship and factual history."

Emile Lester, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington, took issue with much of the content he saw in the U.S. government textbooks. "The [State Board of Education] and these textbooks have collaborated to make students' knowledge of American history a casualty of the culture wars," he wrote in the report.

Lester specifically criticized a proposed Pearson textbook for "a treatment of affirmative action [that] verges on the offensive." He mentioned two cartoons (see below) in which space aliens discuss affirmative action. In a call with reporters on Wednesday, he said those cartoons "imply that recipients of affirmative action ... are un-American."

More: Texas Textbook Battle Heats Up With Claims Of Conservative Bias

Is this another Texas textbook massacre? Why do Texas Conservative keep trying to distort/rewrite history?

Texas Textbook MASSACRE: 'Ultraconservatives' Approve Radical Changes To State Education Curriculum

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change - The New York Times

"The Revisionaries", or The Texas Textbook Massacre

Because they are ashamed of the havoc they have wrought. They want to hide it and hope people forget. How come Bush wasn't featured at the last RRepublicanconvention?

 

[bripat9643]

You mean they continued to spout leftwing lies and propaganda.

In other words, yes, Joe McCarthy was a great danger to the American Republic, and for the likes of you, he would have had you arrested, interrogated, and returned to Fargo.

Nope. McCarthy exposed the people who were a danger to the America Republic. They were all commies like you. That's why all commies hate McCarthy.