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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Will Kansas survive the Texan influence on textbooks?

From Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examinar:

The Texas School Board seems poised to set a new standard for the whole country’s school text books and these standards are largely right-wing, Christian fundamentalist, and even pro-Confederacy in the US Civil War..
According to the Christian Science Monitor:

While the proposed changes to Texas social studies standards aren’t quite so simple (and contrary to some reports, Thomas Jefferson would still be part of the curriculum), the debate over the standards pushed by a conservative majority of the Texas Board of Education – which will be voted on this week – has resulted in a partisan uproar and generated interest far beyond the Lone Star State.

Will the people of Kansas have to settle for standards that were set by Pro-confederacy beliefs of Texas? Kansans fought a bloody battle during the civil war and its people clearly sided with the Union States. So why we want the words and writings of Confederate President Jefferson Davis to have equal importance as President Abraham Lincoln, in Kansas schools?
In this state we already have Kansas history standards that insist that we teach pro-confederate, pro-slavery state leaders such as Senator David Rice Atchison, yet does not require the teaching about Amos Adams Lawrence, and other anti-slavery politicians. The new standards of Texas go as far as changing the “slave trade” to the “Atlantic triangular trade.” This is outright racism. The idea that something like this would take root in our textbooks is an outrage.
Other questionable changes include:

*The role of Thomas Jefferson – who argued for the separation of church and state – is minimized in several places, and the standards would emphasize the degree to which the Founding Fathers were driven by Christian principles.

*American “imperialism” changed to “expansionism,”
Attacks liberal ideas such as the “unintended consequences” of Title IX, affirmative action, and the Great Society.

*Demand the study conservative icons like Phyllis Schlafly, the Heritage Foundation, and the Moral Majority. No left-wing leaders are taught.

*All references to “capitalism” have been replaced with “free enterprise.”


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