Posted on 06/06/2006 12:33:12 PM PDT by WestTexasWend
DALLAS (AP) - Texas ranked lowest among the nation's four southern border states in its standards for teaching Latin American and Mexican history, according to a national study released Monday.
The study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said on a scale of zero to 10, Texas scored a five - just above the national average of 4.2.
California, meanwhile, scored a 10. Arizona scored a six and New Mexico scored an eight, said Walter Russell Meade, a senior fellow for the council on foreign relations who conducted the study based on a review of state education standards.
"It's likely that the state of world history education is a little worse than the standards since there isn't required testing," Meade said. "The subject might not be getting the kind of emphasis that it deserves."
Pat Hardy, a member of the state board of education and a history and geography teacher for the Weatherford Independent School District, disagreed with the analysis.
She said Texas uses a "spiraling curriculum" to teach world history which has more depth than most states because it introduces concepts at different levels and expands on them later.
"They have to understand that our standards are written in strands," Hardy said. "Students have been exposed all along the way to all aspects of the history, the government, the economics, the culture of the world. I think it's brilliant. The Fordham Institute doesn't know jack about teaching."
But at least one Texas lawmaker said the state still needs to increase its standards.
"It's a sad commentary that Texas, a border state, that's history is so intertwined with Mexico and Latin America, ranks so low on the scale," said Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes.
Many states fared even worse than Texas, where Hispanics made up about 35.3 percent of the populace in 2003, according to the U.S. Census.
Thirty states have vague education standards for world history and Latin American and Mexican studies, said Michael Petrilli, vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Alaska, Idaho, Missouri and Montana each received a score of zero for having "superficial or cursory" standards on how to teach World History.
"It's as if many states were not aware that there are countries and cultures south of the Rio Grande," Petrilli said.
We know south of the border sucks. What more do we need to know?
Which culture would that be? The one that had human sacrifices, and canabalism, or the current socialist slavery one?
I have to agree, we need to teach just how inferior and terrible these arcane forms of culture ARE!
History education is often slanted to the preferences of the instructor. I challenge most of you to question their kids about their last completed history course and see how far it went. Often the instructor gets mired down in what interests them many times never getting to the 20th Century or much further than the Civil War. That is why many kids don't know much about Mexican history, or World War I or World War II, korea or Vietnam.
All the history of Mexico I need to know is contained in the PLACEMATS AT THE LOCAL MEXICAN RESTAURANT..........
So that's what administrators are paid for. Inventing new ways to say nothing.
Remember, the Alamo.
And I'd recommend seeing the film of the same name. It's fairly accurate and well done. It's no small wonder Texans are so proud of their state.
Let's see...The Mexican 1824 Constitution, it's betrayal, Santa Anna, The Alamo, Goliad, San Jacinto and the surrender of Santa Anna. Texas as a nation 1836 to 1845 and then the US-MExican War starting in 1846 once Texas joined the Union. The defeat and occupation of Mexico and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.
That history was taught me as a child in Texas...and it said all that needed to be said IMHO.
"cry me a rio".
LOL. That's funny.
I'll take Texas History, thank you very much. (Aren't we one of the only states that teaches as many years of Texas history as we do?) I think it makes all the difference between Texas' conservativism.
Mexico is a medieval pit. The less wee know about it and the less we have to do with it, the better
Same here, even if I do now live in Idaho...see my post 12.
They sold a good part of their country (just one year before the California Gold Rush) and now they're whining ...
If we hadn't bought those lands they'd be just as forsaken as the rest of Mexico.
...and the events that led up to it...not the least of which were The Alamao, Goliad, and San Jacinto and that earlier treaty that created the new Republic of Texas in 1836.
So where do they stand in teaching American history, If the Mexicans want to learn Mexican History they can go back to mexico and learn all they like.
I think I remember what I was taught about Mexican history back quite a few years ago:
It's the country just south of the USA
They won a battle then we crushed them
Thank God you live here and not there
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