Hijacking History, Part 3: Educating Ideologies | Xenia Institute

3 February 2010 Clint No comments

This post is the third in a series of blogs of I’ve written following the actions of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) at their January meetings to approve revisions to the state’s K-12 social studies curriculum. Known as TEKS, these standards will determine the learning goals for Texas students for the next decade and will also impact the publication of textbooks that will be used nationwide. (I cover this more in the previous blogs, Hijacking History and Hijacking History, Part 2.) This post will cover the final two days of the meeting where elected members of the SBOE went through the proposed curriculum revisions and voted on changes of their own. Ultimately, the proceedings exhausted the time allotted for discussion and approval of the revisions, postponing the final vote to the May meeting of the SBOE.

: © 2010 Jupiter Images

The SBOE is composed of 15 members who are elected from districts based on equal population representation. Elections to the board are conducted on a partisan basis, and the recent meetings demonstrated just how detrimental this can be to the educational process. Brian Thevenot of the Texas Tribune has provided excellent coverage of these meetings, and his description of the approval process is no exception:

Debates leading up to the board’s consideration of social studies standards often pitted typically conservative “pro-America” dogma against more typically liberal explorations of women and minority leaders. Yet in the nitty-gritty of at-times testy negotiations, a spirit of mostly polite horse-trading predominated, and most members seemed to get most of what they wanted. And though an eight-member majority block dominated by conservatives often controls the board, votes over specific amendments seldom broke so neatly.

Yet at the end of the day, the approved revisions still took what Terrence Stutz of the Dallas Morning News described as a “tilt to [the] right.” This was highlighted by the inclusion of Phyllis Schafly and the Eagle Forum, the National Rifle Association, the Moral Majority, and the Heritage Foundation to a list of people and groups that student must learn. The amendment passed on a 7-6 vote, but the comments surrounding it prove just as enlightening:

Board member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, offered the amendment requiring coverage of “key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” McLeroy said he offered the proposal because the history standards were already “rife with leftist political periods and events – the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society.”

If the current standards are “rife with leftist” ideals, then the approved changes and rhetoric of the board perhaps indicate a marked shift to the right, rather than just a tilt. Derogatory remarks such as the following one reported following the meetings show not only a preference against multiculturalism, but an outright disregard for the ethnic diversity of our nation:

David Bradley, R-Beaumont Buna, also seemed upset by efforts of fellow board member Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, to include the names of more Latinos in the standards. “If Ms. Berlanga, whose only criteria is skin color, had the votes, she would name us ‘the Hispanic Education Agency,’” he told one reporter.

The circumstances surrounding these meetings mark an unfortunate turn. Instead of a focus on providing the best education for students, the curriculum process in the state of Texas has become the battle ground for the alleged “culture wars” that ultra conservative voices have been attempting to proclaim since the rise of the Moral Majority in the 1980’s. And while I doubt that any protest I raise will ultimately be heard, I’ll close with these words from the SBOE History and Duties page on the Texas Education Agency website (emphasis mine):

As part of its efforts to provide the best possible education to public school students, the Board designates and mandates instruction in the knowledge and skills that are essential to a well-balanced curriculum.

I can only hope that the wisdom on which this board was founded will ultimately prevail.

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Some highlights from the Proceedings of the SBOE on Curriculum Approval:

A proposal is debated to change the definition of good citizenship for first-graders to include “holding public officials to their word.”
The deletion of Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers because she was a socialist.
A requirement that eight grade students analyze ideas in Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address as president of the Confederacy.
An attempt to change all mentions of U.S. “imperialism” to “expansionism.”
Deletion of Margaret Sanger, a leading voice for contraception and relationship counseling, and founder of the organization that ultimately became Planned Parenthood.
Removal of the words “from racial, ethnic, gender, and religious groups” from the existing standard: “Explain actions taken by people from racial, ethnic, gender, and religious groups to expand economic opportunities and political rights in American society.”

These highlights were gathered from live blog coverage of the meetings on January 14 and 15 provided by the Texas Freedom Network:

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate II

Live-Blogging the Social Studies Debate III

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