Texas board OKs new social studies guidelines
AUSTIN, TX
The new standards were adopted after a final showdown by two 9-5
votes along party lines, after Democrats' and moderate Republicans'
efforts to delay a final vote failed.
The ideological debate over the guidelines, which drew intense
scrutiny beyond Texas, will be used to determine what important
political events and figures some 4.8 million students will learn
about for the next decade.
The standards, which one Democrat called a "travesty," also
will be used by textbook publishers who often develop materials for
other states based on guidelines approved in Texas, although
teachers in the Lone Star state have latitude in deciding how to
teach the material.
The board attempted to make more than 200 amendments this week
alone, reshaping draft standards that had been prepared over the
last year and a half by expert groups of teachers and professors.
As new amendments were being presented just moments before the
vote, Democrats bristled that the changes had not been vetted.
"I think we're doing an injustice to the children of this state
by piecemealing together, cutting and pasting, coming up with new
amendments as late as today," said Mary Helen Berlanga, a
Democrat. "What we have done today and what we did yesterday is
something that a classroom teacher would not even have accepted."
In one of the most significant changes leading up to the vote,
the board attempted to water down the rationale for the separation
of church and state in a high school government class, pointing out
that the words were not in the Constitution and requiring that
students compare and contrast the judicial language with the
wording in the First Amendment.
They also rejected language to modernize the classification of
historic periods to B.C.E. and C.E. from the traditional B.C. and
A.D., and agreed to replace Thomas Jefferson as an example of an
influential political philosopher in a world history class. They
also required students to evaluate efforts by global organizations
such as the United Nations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.
Former board chairman Don McLeroy, one of the board's most
outspoken conservatives, said the Texas history curriculum has been
unfairly skewed to the left after years of Democrats controlling
the board and he just wants to bring it back into balance.
"I'm proud to have my name on this document," Republican board
member Barbara Cargill said shortly before the vote.
Another Republican board member, David Bradley, said the
curriculum revision process has always been political -- but this
time, the ruling faction had changed since the last time social
studies standards were adopted.
"We took our licks, we got outvoted," he said referring to the
debate from 10 years earlier. "Now it's 10-5 in the other
direction ... we're an elected body, this is a political process.
Outside that, go find yourself a benevolent dictator."
GOP board member Geraldine Miller was absent during the votes."
During the monthslong revision process, conservatives
strengthened requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian
influences of the nation's Founding Fathers and required that the
U.S. government be referred to as a "constitutional republic,"
rather than "democratic." Students will be required to study the
decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment
of the gold standard.
Educators have blasted the curriculum proposals for politicizing
education. Teachers also have said the document is too long and
will force students to memorize lists of names rather than thinking
critically.
The curriculum dispute contributed to McLeroy's defeat in the
March state Republican primary.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said school officials "should
keep politics out" of curriculum debates.
"We do a disservice to children when we shield them from the
truth, just because some people think it is painful or doesnt fit
with their particular views," Duncan said in a statement.
"Parents should be very wary of politicians designing
curriculum."
After the vote, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas
urged the state Legislature to place more control over the board.
"At the end of three long days, the State Board of Education
has amended, re-amended and approved curriculum standards that are
more ideological than ever, despite pleas to not politicize what is
taught to Texas school children," said the state ACLU's executive
director, Terri Burke.
At least one lawmaker vowed legislative action to "rein in"
the board.
"They have ignored historians and teachers, allowing
ideological activists to push the culture war further into our
classrooms," said Rep. Mike Villareal, a San Antonio Democrat.
"They fail to understand that we don't want liberal textbooks or
conservative textbooks. We want excellent textbooks, written by
historians instead of activists."