http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/us/texas-approves-disputed-history-texts-for-schools.html Have to say the different slants on history in each state is interesting. My kids attend school in an extremely liberal state and I am considering putting th em in a conservative, private school. Happy to see Texas laying down the line on key issues
What could possibly go wrong with Christian conservatives injecting their politics and religion into public education.
As a member of the Educational Publishing industry this is very disturbing to me. The problem is that these decisions affect more than just Texas. Since Texas is so big with so many public schools and students, textbook publishers look to the state on decisions affecting what books to offer nationally.
I guess for the sake of standardization and redundancy, but I imagine California and New York have similar volume and indirect influence; so it would seem to balance out between particular regional or sociopolitical tranches.
Nowhere in the curriculum of New York or California does it state that Moses (or the bible) influenced the structure/writing of the constitution.
Yeah, that's why their influence on non-collegiate textbook editing and deployment would offset Texas's.
Title of thread could have been used many times over the last 50 years or so. Still, when I was a kid the battle was over Biology but now it has spread to other subjects. Wingers seem intent on taking that Dumbest Developed Nation title from Italy.
mc mark is not making this up, it's had pretty regular coverage in magazines and newspapers for several years now. Here's a good one from a couple of years ago that details the whys and hows that make people concerned, and specifically addresses your personal claim that Cali standards would somehow offset Texas: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/
Moses was Jesus' grandfather. The Pilgrims came to America to worship Jesus. Eventually Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin established American democracy.
We need to move away from textbook anyway. Always outdated and expensive for schools to purchase millions of them. Electronic book is the future.
It's interesting, because I've heard a number of these "textbook controversies" in Texas as well as a lot of underlying conservative nonsense thrown in for good measure in Texas education. That being said, Texas public education is still leaps and bounds better than California's. It's actually pretty crazy how big the difference is.
