Texas nutjobs going for the gold with schools

[jackschmittusa]

The wackos in Texas have been at it for some time, but this is really over-the-top.

http://gawker.com/5540483/meet-the-crusader-behind-texas-textbook-whitewash

TheOnion couldn't do better:

"# Remember that thing called the slave trade? Well, it turns out what you learned was all wrong, because it wasn't some evil buying and selling of human beings, it was simply "Atlantic triangular trade."
# The Civil Rights Movement created "unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes" for minorities in America. And Martin Luther King, Jr? Pretty much a Black Panther.
# Thomas Jefferson? He was an insignificant, God-hating heathen who made sure that church and state remained separate.
# Senator Joe McCarthy was right to go after the Godless commies in Hollywood and Washington. He will be vindicated."

"Sir Isaac Newton didn't know shit. We have military technology to thank for America's successes in science."

"Moses had a greater influence on the US Constitution than Thomas Jefferson did."

Tragically, it looks to some that this and other, equally ridiculous BS will be adopted for all of the schools in Texas, and by default, many other schools in the nation as well.

 

[theflyingpig]

Once again the stupidity of religion infects the minds of our youth.

 

[Infohawk]

Disgusting. Unfortunately a democracy is only as strong as its citizens. If these idiots want to purposefully teach their children stupid things what can one do?

 

[Mr. Lennon]

If Texas goes through with this shit, I hope other states refuse to continue buying textbooks from them. Don't need the rest of our countries youth being taught this false wingnut propaganda.

 

[Lemon law]

Hell, only discriminate against Texas textbooks??

This is Texas declaring war on the science and education of the whole nation and the answer is simple.

Just revoke the academic accreditation of every single school in Texas until this Texas stupidity is reversed.

Meaning a Texas high school diploma cannot get anyone admitted into college, and a Texas College degree becomes equivalent to a high school diploma. ( Because it will be all they would then be are worth )

Implement that policy nationwide and we will see exactly how fast the good people of Texas can run Cynthia Dunbar and her ilk clean out of Texas, and with some luck a few will tarry a little too long and suffer worse humiliation.

 

[Infohawk]

Just revoke the academic accreditation of every single school in Texas until this Texas stupidity is reversed.

Good idea (except I'm not sure the colleges should be penalized unless they teach voluntary retardation as well.)

 

[charrison]

How about some of the actual text, rather then these extreme quotes.....

 

[Jhhnn]

Conservatives widely believe govt is incompetent, and when they're running it, they make sure that it is.

Dunbar is just another bit of tainted fruitcake on the rightwing's platter of poisonous offerings...

 

[Double Trouble]

Ok, so those are the comments from some stupid site (wtf is Gawker anyway?), lets see some actual commentary from an informed source on what the changes actually are and how they are presented. Then we can see what's really going on.

 

[PottedMeat]

Ok, so those are the comments from some stupid site (wtf is Gawker anyway?), lets see some actual commentary from an informed source on what the changes actually are and how they are presented. Then we can see what's really going on.

Yeah, this is why I hate blogs. Lots of emotional commentary ( or worse, marginally accurate info mixed in with the writer's speculation ) and hard to find sources.

Guardian Article about her: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

Board proposal idiocy from article:

Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the "significant contributions" of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war.

The new curriculum asserts that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society. Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.

There is also a suggestion that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.

The education board has dropped references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous "Atlantic triangular trade", and recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as driven by Islamic fundamentalism.

NYT Article about changes to Texas school curriculum: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?hp

Well at least they'll teach it / fund it in Texas in a half-assed manner. So having football as a priority does have a plus! :awe:

 

[nonlnear]

Ok, so those are the comments from some stupid site (wtf is Gawker anyway?), lets see some actual commentary from an informed source on what the changes actually are and how they are presented. Then we can see what's really going on.

This.

As much as I would like to poo-poo a fundie backed textbook, this kind of criticism does not actually help a discussion. For example:

Atlantic triangle trade is a perfectly fair term to use and is in fact more useful for purposes of historical analysis than the term "slave trade". Using a term that references the underlying political and economic relationships is far superior to a term that focuses on the most emotionally evocative piece of a complex phenomenon.

The Civil Rights movement was a complicated beast that is artificially simplified by the canonization of Dr. King.Yes he was a major figure, but there were many others doing other things, and the Black Panthers were a big part of that larger phenomenon. Without seeing exactly how the narrative is presented, and how the various figures are related to each other, the quote from the article is kind of meaningless. I do agree that it is harmful to the study of history to introduce value judgments like "unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes". While there is an argument to be made for both sides of such a claim, it is very dishonest to present that as an elementary historical claim. That speaks to more fundamental questions of political power that are almost never treated properly in high school.

I like Jefferson a LOT, but I think he is somewhat overrated. I'd have to see exactly how he is presented to judge what they've done.

I don't really have a comment about McCarthy right now except that his legacy is more complicated than the two second version would have us believe. No, I'm not claiming that "he will be vindicated" but I'm not sure the book explicitly claims that either - without an actual quote...

The right to bear arms is essential to democracy and kids really need to learn this in school. Well yeah!

By the time you get down to the blurb about Newton and Lockheed Martin it's quite clear that this article is no better than the worst history book could ever be. There is no way to infer anything sensible about what the book actually says from such petulant nonsense as this:

Sir Isaac Newton didn't know shit. We have military technology to thank for America's successes in science. So please, take the time to write Lockheed Martin and let them know that you appreciate everything they do for America.

Cliffs: The book might be a piece of trash but this article, which sets out to demonstrate that fact, only proves itself to be one.

 

[Tristicus]

As if the shit being taught in the textbooks now is 100% factually correct already, now we have to make it even less...

 

[Kirby]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised, but without some specific quotes from the textbooks it's hearsay.

 

[CitizenKain]

Cynthia Dunbar does not have a high regard for her local schools. She has called them unconstitutional, tyrannical and tools of perversion. The conservative Texas lawyer has even likened sending children to her state's schools to "throwing them in to the enemy's flames". Her hostility runs so deep that she educated her own offspring at home and at private Christian establishments.

Now Dunbar is on the brink of fulfilling a promise to change all that, or at least point Texas schools toward salvation. She is one of a clutch of Christian evangelists and social conservatives who have grasped control of the state's education board. This week they are expected to force through a new curriculum that is likely to shift what millions of American schoolchildren far beyond Texas learn about their history.

That is the sort of slack jawed retard that is picking text books. She fucked up her children and now she wants to screw up millions of others.

 

[spidey07]

That is the sort of slack jawed retard that is picking text books. She fucked up her children and now she wants to screw up millions of others.

By teaching them the truth? We've taken the constitution and US History out of the classroom (or twisted it way out of line) and they are simply putting it back in. They should be commended.

I know this flies in the face of liberal brainwashing of the nations children and attempting to rewrite history to show America is bad and founded by a bunch of racist rich white dudes but Texas should be showcased as the free state that it is.

Also, this is very old news.

 

[totalnoob]

It's not hearsay.. What I've seen is actually worse. They are dropping some of the founders like Jefferson and Paine as people who "influenced revolutionary thinking" and replacing them with people like John Calvin and THOMAS AQUINAS. I shit you not. The man who named the USA and wrote Common Sense (Paine) is considered less influential in our founding than some Christian philosopher who lived 700 years ago.

 

[nonlnear]

It's not hearsay..

Yes it is. Whether it's true or not is a separate question. The simple fact is this article presents no actual evidence to back up its claim, and its style is such that it would be foolish to believe anything written in it based on the claims of the article alone.

What I've seen is actually worse. They are dropping some of the founders like Jefferson and Paine as people who "influenced revolutionary thinking" and replacing them with people like John Calvin and THOMAS AQUINAS. I shit you not. The man who named the USA and wrote Common Sense (Paine) is considered less influential in our founding than some Christian philosopher who lived 700 years ago.

Hey, I never claimed that the book was any good. All I said was that the article is a piece of shit. Yes it is probably painful to write an article that criticizes a book like this in a tasteful manner as, from the sound of it, it's terrible enough to get anyone's sarcastic juices flowing. However that is the duty incumbent on anyone who hopes to convince people who reserve judgment for compelling evidence to... make a judgment.

 

[Thump553]

If Texas goes through with this shit, I hope other states refuse to continue buying textbooks from them. Don't need the rest of our countries youth being taught this false wingnut propaganda.

Texas doesn't sell textbooks, they set required standards for use as school texts within their state. The problem is Texas is so big and the finances of the textbook industry are such that many times it is economically unfeasible to publish two versions of the same book. Thus Texas, which claims to support individualism and freedom as bedrock principles, in fact uses regulation to mandate it's political agenda beyond it's state borders. Communist countries and dictatorships have used the same technique of rewriting textbooks to only convey acceptable doctrine for decades. But it's evil when Chavez does it, that's the difference.

 

[ayabe]

By teaching them the truth? We've taken the constitution and US History out of the classroom (or twisted it way out of line) and they are simply putting it back in. They should be commended.

I know this flies in the face of liberal brainwashing of the nations children and attempting to rewrite history to show America is bad and founded by a bunch of racist rich white dudes but Texas should be showcased as the free state that it is.

Also, this is very old news.

lol, another parody post. thanks for the laugh.

 

[CitizenKain]

By teaching them the truth? We've taken the constitution and US History out of the classroom (or twisted it way out of line) and they are simply putting it back in. They should be commended.

I know this flies in the face of liberal brainwashing of the nations children and attempting to rewrite history to show America is bad and founded by a bunch of racist rich white dudes but Texas should be showcased as the free state that it is.

Also, this is very old news.

Rightwingers have a such a unique interpretation of truth. I mean, America WAS founded by a bunch of racist white dudes.

 

[jackschmittusa]

There are numerous articles about what she is doing, and all say pretty much the same thing. There is an interview on a radio show called "The View". It's online and audio only. It's long, lots of music at the breaks to supposedly make a point (including "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie" which the host claims are the only 2 legitimate wars the country ever fought), and a host that may actually be more of a fundie nutjob than Dunbar is.

During the course of the interview, she makes it perfectly clear that she is on a mission to incorporate as much Christian Fundamentalist ideology into the textbooks as she possibly can. She is not shy at all about what she is doing. And she says she is getting it done.

She even derides other church-going Christians who don't share her radical Christian world view totally.

She proclaims the country to be a Christian nation, founded as a theocracy, and is determined that school children be indoctrinated with her beliefs.

I don't think that any of the articles about this are really blowing anything out of proportion.

 

[ElFenix]

http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/the-revision-thing/

 

[OutHouse]

How about some of the actual text, rather then these extreme quotes.....

+1

 

[heyheybooboo]

How about some of the actual text, rather then these extreme quotes.....

+1

Education official refuses to retract Obama terror claim

AUSTIN — State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar isn't backing down from her claim that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is plotting with terrorists to attack the U.S. ....

In a column posted on the Christian Worldview Network Web site, Dunbar wrote that a terrorist attack on America during the first six months of an Obama administration "will be a planned effort by those with whom Obama truly sympathizes to take down the America that is threat to tyranny."

She also suggests Obama would seek to expand his power by declaring martial law throughout the country. ....

"Right now, we're still in America and we still have freedom of speech," Dunbar said. "And unless that's changed, I'm not aware of it."

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(Pssst ... Cynthia Dunbar is a Fundie Loon)




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[Jhhnn]

(Pssst ... Cynthia Dunbar is a Fundie Loon)

It bears repeating.