Social Conservatives Rewrite History Standards
Late Thursday afternoon, after losing a series of attempts to include Hispanic history in state social studies standards, State Board of Education member Mary Helen Berlanga gazed down at a new stack of amendments — stripping victories she thought she had gained at a meeting in January, including the inclusion of Hispanic heroes of the Alamo.
Board conservatives had been shooting down her liberal faction in split votes all day — in the latest example, it removed a Hispanic artist because of one abstract painting of a woman with bare breasts — and Berlanga figured nothing would change through the night, a prediction ...
Comments (7)
BurningFeet
"More than once during the day, she recommended the Legislature consider eliminating the state education board entirely."
Had to read the entire article before I found something that wasn't uproariously funny and actually useful. Texans Behaving Badly should have been the headline. McLeroy and fellow morans demonstrate a comedic talent that deserves its own unreality show on Fox. They really believe that if hip-hop isn't mentioned in a worthless school book it will vanish from kids' lives? Of course! And no boobies!
'They are going to build a wall around this state to contain the stupid, and I'll be trapped.' - BF
geographylady
They trashed everything we worked so hard to produce (TEKS revisions), with absolutely no understanding of what we do in the classroom. Its almost enough to make me quit teaching.
Paul Theobald
They are attempting to re-write history the way they want it to have happened. This is an incredibly divisive direction the conservatives on the SBOE are going. Those who have a hunger for the truth will end up resenting the institutions of learning that we are struggling so hard to put them through. Why would someone with a logical mind want to study as truth something which is not, and has clearly been written to accommodate a specific ideology? It reminds me of a book called 1984, by George Orwell, in which workers at the "Ministry of Truth" worked to "correct" the "typos" in history to make Big Brother and the Party seem omniscient and perfect.
dshaas
It's worth noting that Ms. Berlanga, served on the appointed SBOE (created as a part of HB 72 to implement the provisions of that bill) as well as an elected official. She has pretty much seen it all...and when she suggests the Legislature should eliminate the board, it is probably worth considering.
As for Ms. Dunbar, perhaps she should read up on Thomas Jefferson (who, as I recall was a founding father) and insisted there should be a "constitutional wall" erected between church and state.
JackTar
Time and progress are on the side of real Texans. The right-wingers on the board are the sad descendants of conservatives who tried to preserve slavery, then set up apartheid, tried to kill constitutional civil rights and now are doing this.
It's horrible to put up with, but the common-sense member is right. Hispanics have always been a part of Texas and they will proudly overcome these final bigotries.
(Historical note: The only native-born Texans fighting against Santa Ana at the Alamo were Hispanics. Every Texan alive should thank God they didn't treat immigrants they way we do today.)
thorn
Its also important to bring up that teachers are not bound to use the books... teachers can fight this themselves by not teaching from the textbook and coming up with lessons that do not rely on it for their value. All hope is not lost.
geographylady
whether we use the textbooks or not, this is what we have to teach, because it what the kdis are tested on - and with End of Course exams mandatory for graduating from high school, we have to prepare the kids to pass them.
so yea, we have to teach this c**p.