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Last updated: Monday, Feb. 6, 3:17 a.m.
Columnists | Opinion

Columnist: Everything is bigger in Texas, especially school board egos

By Madelyn Kearns
Posted on March 18, 2010, at 3:09 a.m.

There are six flags that currently fly over Texas. Each banner represents a sovereignty that claims or had once claimed the Lone Star State as its own, including countries such as Mexico, Spain and even France.

But following public education curricula changes proposed by the Texas Board of Education, we may witness the hoisting of a seventh banderole over the Texas Capitol building: one depicting the all-too-familiar, tri-starred elephant and a witty slogan that manages to capitalize the word “right.”

Under the pretense that textbooks in the school system are liberally biased, the board decided last Friday in a 10-5 vote to amend the program of study by providing a more conservative outlook on the nation’s lineage.

Don McLeroy, a former chairman of the board, said the decision to alter the curriculum was made in an effort to balance the pages of American history.

“History has already been skewed,” McLeroy told The New York Times. “Academia is skewed too far to the left.”

The solution came after three days of debate, with the board settling on a set of information to be included in the newly tailored textbooks.

Proposed improvements included replacing the word “capitalism” with “free-enterprise system” to eliminate negative stigmas, teaching the importance of “personal responsibility for life choices” in the chapters on suicide, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders, and the removal of Thomas Jefferson from the list of influential thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries, because his championing of separation of church and state clashed with the conservative board members’ beliefs.

The board also vetoed other members’ requests for students to learn about Latino-American role models and the reasons for protecting religious freedoms. The former refusal incited one member of the board, Mary Helen Berlanga, to leave the meeting enraged. Not one historian or teacher was consulted during the debate.

That the state of Texas tends to lean to the right when it comes to politics is far from breaking news, but to discover that such beliefs have migrated from the nation’s capital to the pages of elementary and high school textbooks comes as a shock.

It is no secret that history books are pliable to ­­— and often written by — the people in power. Naturally, somewhere down the timeline, things are going to garner a political stigma favoring one party over another. Therefore, the statement that some of history is a bit more honed upon by a Democratic mindset has certain validity to it.

What the board is trying to force, though, has nothing to do with its fellow American citizens and presenting information objectively, and everything to do with reworking history to plug its own selfish agenda.

Texas is the leading consumer of school textbooks in the nation and one of 22 states with a textbook approval process. Many national publishers revise their textbooks to make them in line with standards established by Texas, and these books are then marketed to public schools across the country.

Even though a state register will be published and open for public comment for 30 days before the final decision in May, it is projected that the party lines will be maintained and the amendments will ultimately pass.

What would it say about us as a country if we were to let the Texas fundamentalists get away with blatantly rewriting history?

This situation does not provide impetus for the revival of the education system.

The ideology behind these shenanigans is one that is as identifiable in American culture as Babe Ruth — people will do whatever it takes to try to control what can never truly be theirs. In this case, it is the minds of others. It’s sad to see the classroom turned into yet another political circus run by egocentric clowns.

Madelyn Kearns is a sophomore mass communication student.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010, 3:09 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.

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  • Mark Taylor

    Despite not being a fan, I think Chuck Norris’s double-length exclusive column at World Net Daily (“Don’t mess with Texas…textbooks”) on the issue actually has some very valid points, especially in pointing out America’s Founders’ intent for religion in education.

    Here’s a sample from his column at
    http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=127935

    “…conservatives argue that most American history in textbooks basically avoids religion – and thus changes and misrepresents history – and prominent religious scholars are apt to agree with them on that point. Martin Marty, emeritus professor at the University of Chicago, former president of the American Academy of Religion and the American Society of Church History and recognized as one of the country’s foremost American religious historians, explained, ‘In American history, religion is all over the place, and wherever it appears, you should tell the story and do it appropriately.’

    “The founders’ educational philosophy even included teaching the Bible. As
    Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote, “To the citizens of Philadelphia: A Plan for Free Schools,” on March 28, 1787: ‘Let the children who are sent to those schools be taught to read and write and above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education.’

    “Noah Webster, the ‘Father of American Scholarship and Education,’ stated, ‘In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed. … No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.’

    “In 1789, during the same time when the First Amendment was written, then-President George Washington signed into law the Northwest Ordinance, which states, ‘Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.’ Does anyone not know what the term ‘forever’ means? Can any member of the SBOE or any other state board of education be penalized for agreeing with the founders of America?

    “Even Thomas Jefferson, while protecting the University of Virginia (chartered in 1819) from the single sectarianism typically connected to other higher academic institutions of his day, wrote about his vision for the university on Dec. 27, 1820: ‘This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error as long as reason is left free to combat it.’”

    Seems to me Jefferson would have tolerated both extreme points of view and that our polarizing over issues like religion wouldn’ t have been a threat to him IN EDUCATIONAL CIRCLES.

  • Elizabeth Conley

    Mr. Taylor,

    Thank you for your very reasonable response to the Left Wing Spin on the Texas Board’s excellent curriculum decisions.

    We became a home schooling family in order to assure our children became well educated, rather than merely culturally indoctrinated. Not every American family is so privileged that they can join us in this luxury. For those who are not, high standards and good instruction in the public schools are their best hope.

    The gap between what the well-educated know and the well-indoctrinated believe is wide, and getting wider. Something must be done before the culture gap within our nation creates serious civil unrest.

    I sincerely hope the rest of the nation will have the courage to follow the example set in Texas.

  • Deb

    Nicely written op-ed piece. Well done, Ms. Kearns

  • David Bishop

    It was well done op-ed piece however misguided.
    I am a UMO graduate and former Maine resident but have lived in Texas for the past 30 years. It’s my observance that a majority of Texans believe in ” individual responsibility, limited government, and free enterprise. To refer to these values as egotistical and clownish belies a limited understanding of Texas history.

    In any case, thankfully the State of Texas takes it’s Constitutional right of “local” education control seriously. Like it or not.

  • Andrew

    Please look up “indoctrinate.” If you’ll notice, it can be used synonymously with “educate,” negative connotation notwithstanding.

    Indoctrination is what society uses to make sure everyone’s marching in step. Though we Americans claim to love a good individualist, what we really love more is a good conformist, or at least someone who conforms to a certain extent (anent laws, regulations, and social standards of decency). It’s the price of civilization. If people weren’t marching in step, the result would be anarchy. Anyway, the whole point of our education system is indoctrination. Students who attend public schools will emerge carrying certain beliefs not held by our noble ancestors, including that all people, regardless of skin tone, heritage, class, creed, dentition, hair style, number of X chromosomes, or favorite Beatle are all accorded equal treatment. They will hopefully emerge thinking that democracy, though flawed, is a preferable form of government to, say, a dictatorship. They will hopefully emerge thinking that they should brush their teeth twice a day and that showering, washing one’s hands after using the bathroom, wearing clothes and deodorant, and kleenex are all good ideas. None of these things are objective facts; they are the result of cultural indoctrination.

    Where indoctrination stops (or, where it should stop) is where truth begins. Fact: Earth is center of neither the universe nor the solar system. Fact: apes and humans as species share a common ancestor. Fact: Thomas Jefferson supported separation of church and state:

    Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

    I am well aware of all the European settlements in North America that were founded on Biblical law, despite my status as a product of our public education system, and a conspiratorial liberal to boot. However, none of those settlements have any bearing on the history of our nation as a political entity. They established no precedents that the founding fathers were obligated to follow, and they have no bearing on how law should presently be interpreted. If you’ll remember, the whole reason that the pilgrims et. al. left England to begin with was because the king, in his role as head of the Anglican church, was repressing their right to worship. The founding fathers definitely did not want a repeat of that situation. The protections that they created, however, are a sword that cuts both ways (from the fundamentalist Christian ideologue point of view, anyway). Christianity, though present in our history, is not something that should be taught as fact, preached, or promulgated in a federally-funded school system. Likewise, the partisan rewriting of history to cast modern-day standard bearers of any party is a dangerous abuse of power. Say what you will about liberals, but I have yet to encounter a textbook that discusses the historical importance of Ralph Nader.

    In the immortal words of Stephen Colbert, “Reality has a well known liberal bias.”