Texas Sidestep

Accuracy in Academia ^ | May 25, 2010 | Malcolm A. Kline

[bs9021]

Texas Sidestep

Malcolm A. Kline, May 26, 2010

Elites who treat the efforts of Texas officials to balance their otherwise politically correct textbooks as a scandal are missing an even bigger outrage in the Lone Star State’s public schools. “Decisions that are made in Texas have a ripple effect across the country,” Phillip VanFossen, head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and a professor of social studies education at Purdue University told Amanda Paulson, a staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor.

“Still, he notes, as the pendulum swings toward national standards—which have yet to be developed for social studies—that influence might wane,” Paulson wrote on May 19, 2010. “Just in case, California this week passed a bill out of a Senate committee that would ensure no California textbooks contain any Texas-driven changes.”

“Among the changes: Students would be required to learn about the ‘unintended consequences’ of Title IX, affirmative action, and the Great Society, and would need to study conservative icons like Phyllis Schlafly, the Heritage Foundation, and the Moral Majority,” Paulson claimed. “The slave trade would be renamed the ‘Atlantic triangular trade,’ American ‘imperialism’ changed to ‘expansionism,’ and all references to ‘capitalism’ have been replaced with ‘free enterprise.’”

“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.”

Ironically, the most contentious of these changes Paulson alleges—the bizarre euphemism for slavery—might work to the benefit of the politically correct as it would help to downplay the role of Islamic societies which sold the slaves into bondage to begin with. ....

[Mind-numbed Robot]

California seems determine to stand alone in their isolation from reality. They are against AZ and TX specifically and reality in general.

[reaganairport]

The slave trade would be renamed the 'Atlantic triangular trade'

WTF? This is exactly the sort of Politically Correct BS that conservatives are supposed to be against.

[DManA]

We have a government monopoly on school. Politics is the civilize way to make government decisions. The alternative is corruptions and violence.

People who decry politics in schools are, probably unconsciously, unintentionally, arguing to privatize the school system.

[W. W. SMITH]

The slave trade would be renamed the ‘Atlantic triangular trade’

I call BS on this. that is so far out that neither side politically would go with this.