AZ has another bill.Follow

And some would say that they're correcting for bias which has been present in that curriculum for some time. One can certainly argue, for example, that the removal of a requirement that sociology students “explain how institutional racism is evident in American society” is a removal of an existing politically oriented bias. And while we could certainly point to the wordplay involved in insisting on changing references to the US as "democratic" to a "constitutional republic", one must also conclude that the former less accurate term is *also* an example of wordplay designed to tie into an existing political party name.


We could go back and forth on a whole list of the changes. Some of them are somewhat petty and silly. But so were many of the things removed or changed from. Some of them are quite reasonable unless you want a specific political slant to the education at hand, like why the prior curriculum didn't look at unintended consequences of Great Society legislation (but covers it in a positive way), why the civil rights curriculum covers King's non-violent protests, but ignores other violent protests and fails to mention that Republicans were the party most in favor of passage (Dems tend to get credit for this via assumption absent that information), and a host of others. It's not hard to get a sneaking suspicion that the existing curriculum had a number of sections almost designed to make Democrats look good while downplaying or ignoring any positive contributions from Republicans along the way.


Honestly, at the end of the day, there's always going to be some spin and some bias in education. It's pretty much unavoidable. But it's more than a bit silly for the status quo of bias to sit unchallenged for a few decades until one day the GOP has sufficient power in Texas to make some changes and then suddenly it's like we've just discovered today that the political party in control at the time can influence the curriculum taught in our nations classrooms. Really? That never occurred to any of you during the 30 years or so that the Dems have largely been the one's writing this stuff? Hmmm...

And each and every time you have done so, I have said, "I agree that classes shouldn't exclude other races or promote resentment towards another race. But my problem is with the 'solidarity' part of the bill. I can easily see how these classes could be canceled on that alone, which is my problem with it." And I have yet to see you acknowledge that or offer your own opinion.

I'm not surprised about that, either, though. My having that opinion completely undermines any argument you have, which means it's time to start talking about voucher systems and liberal indoctrination in public schools.

Sure. Look at you and your pitch-perfect parroting of the GOP party line. Obviously that came from somewhere...

Except that a right wing controlled Texas SBOE isn't new. The education was never left of center unless you're accusing the republicans of having previously pushed a left of center platform that they are now correcting.

If you look at specific actions of the SBOE you'd see that many of them are specifically pushing right wing agendas in a non arbitrary way. Around 2004 they pushed for health textbooks to specifically define marriage as that between a man and a woman. Regardless of how you personally feel about the issue, at that time same sex marriage was a legal form of marriage in Massachusetts making the definition in the textbook categorically incorrect. It was clearly not intended to educate about the reality of our country (right or wrong), but to represent a singular view.

But mostly you're just plain wrong about Texas state education having been left of center in the past and just now being corrected. It was right of center before, and now it is moving further right. I don't think it's at the level of indoctrination, but it certainly was never indoctrinating toward the left.

Edited, May 24th 2010 11:38pm by Allegory

Abortion - Bad!

Homosexuality - Bad!

Premarital Sex - Fantastic!

Yup, 'true christians' don't pick and mix which parts of the bible they want to believe.

Lubi,




You're an idiot;but you knew this.

Because it's conservative mindless indoctrination?

You mean the conservatives, right? Am I right? The conservatives? Are thick? Right? Conservatives?

I win!!!!

Do you have some details on this? My understanding is that it's only been in the last decade that the Board has had a majority of Republicans on it. For decades prior to that, it's been run by Democrats. You do understand that until the 2000 election, the Texas state legislature was controlled by Democrats for 80 years, right? I know that there's this perception that Texas is a hard-right state, but the Dems have managed to control it's laws, education, and judiciary for a very very long time. That has only changed recently.

I can't say precisely when the GOP gained control over the SBOE, but it's absolutely wrong to ignore the potential of existing liberal bias in the education system on an assumption that conservatives have controlled it all along.



Do you know this for a fact? Or are you just proceeding based on assumption?

Southern Democrats. The same Democrats who held hands with the KKK. The same guys who were fiercely skeptical of federal or even state government. The same Democrats who were fighting against integration. These aren't your liberal hippy or latte drinking Dems. These are the guys who had the religious right before Reagan.

Where do you think I went to school?