Texas braces for fight over social studies lessons

AP via Yahoo ^ | 1/13/2010 | APRIL CASTRO

[Santa Fe_Conservative]

AUSTIN, Texas – Parents, teachers and activists lined up Wednesday for the chance to help shape the way history — topics from the Roman Empire to Texas cosmetics queen Mary Kay Ash — will be taught to millions of Texas children for the next decade.

The State Board of Education began taking testimony ahead of a tentative vote later this week on new social studies curriculum standards that will serve as the framework in Texas classrooms. But, as usual in votes before the conservative-led board, the wide-reaching guidelines are full of potential ideological flashpoints.

Early quibbles over how much prominence to give civil rights leaders such as Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall, and the inclusion of Christmas seem to have been smoothed over. Board Chairman Gail Lowe said at the start of the hearing that Christmas and activist Cesar Chavez will not be removed from the standards.

But board members are still crafting dozens of amendments to be raised for consideration before the tentative vote, expected Thursday. The 15-member board won't adopt final standards until March.

The curriculum it chooses will be the guideposts for teaching history and social studies to some 4.8 million K-12 students for 10 years. The standards will be used to develop state tests and by textbook publishers who develop material for the nation based on Texas, one of the largest markets.

In early testimony, the board was urged to include more examples of influential Mexican Americans in the nation's history and to further acknowledge Sikhism as a major world religion.

[BenLurkin]

Two things to remember:

1)The creation of our Republic marked the high point of history, capping three thousand years of development in the Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman, Anglo-American heritage.

2) The United States liberated the lands and peoples of what are now its southwestern states from the tyranny of Santa Ana and the misery of Mexico.

[tarawa]

Well, one of the states did that on their own.... ;-)

[johngalt42]

Juan Sequin would be a better choice than Cesar Chavez.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember in my teens I used to buy old history books at a junk store. I got one that ended about 1900 and another that ended about 1918.

Then I noticed that both American History books differed in what they taught. One book said, before the Civil War, New Mexico and Arizona were to be considered Slave territories. The other book said they were not slave territories. Both had maps showing slave territories.

[SunkenCiv]

The curriculum it chooses will be the guideposts for teaching history and social studies to some 4.8 million K-12 students for 10 years. The standards will be used to develop state tests and by textbook publishers who develop material for the nation based on Texas, one of the largest markets. In early testimony, the board was urged to include more examples of influential Mexican Americans in the nation's history and to further acknowledge Sikhism as a major world religion.

[mnehring]

Yahoo or the AP changed the story this morning. Now it says Bill Gates in stead of Mary Kay.

I almost fell out of my seat when I saw Mary Kay in the original story. I can just imagine a bunch of over painted Baptist women fighting to have their hero- multi- level marketing make-up queen Mary Kay included in textbooks.

[a fool in paradise]

The Left wants to push Ceasar Chavez as the hispanic MLK but it just isn’t so. The Hispanic Jimmy Hoffa maybe.

He was a union organizer who lied to college students. I witnessed it myself when I saw him speak in the 1980s about a grape boycott to secure better benefits. He talked it up as a health issue “these grapes can hurt you” yet when asked if people should boycott wine and rasins as well as table grapes he responded that the student shouldn’t because that wasn’t his union.

[a fool in paradise]

Santa Ana isn’t Hispanic enough for them.