RSS Feed MenuIn response to the recent passage of a controversial set of textbook standards by the Texas School Board, California has passed a corresponding set of standards which reinstate all the items supposedly expunged from the Texan curriculum, so as to blunt the national impact of said curriculum. Interestingly, both sides claim to be defending the values of “true” education, which, each side claims, are supposedly threatened by the ideologically-minded rabble on the other side.
I say, a plague on both your houses. God bless them both. Partisans of the Texan approach condemn California for excluding conservative contributions to history and painting the United States in an overly-negative light by cherry-picking their historical emphases. They are right. Partisans of California’s approach condemn Texas for ignoring ideologically inconvenient contributions to American history, and for painting an overly rosy picture of the United States by cherry-picking their historical emphases. They are also right. The fact is, there is not enough time in the school year to teach every historical fact (to say nothing of the debates over whether particular facts come from reliable sources), and the crafting of a curriculum requires differences of emphases at the discretion of the curriculum’s writer. However nice it would be to remove ideological influence from this determination, there is simply no way to insure such a result in the absence of a means to read the minds of educators.
Fortunately, thanks to the constitutionally-erected philosophy of federalism, there is no necessity for such political telepathy. Education has remained primarily a state issue, which is precisely why the inter-state debate currently proceeding between California and Texas is such a valuable thing. The states are laboratories of democracy, which is precisely what has occurred in the case of both states. Those who dislike the results may move, or send their children to private schools, but it is one of the beauties of our constitutional system that two states can disagree so fiercely without imposing on each others’ values.
Although, to be just a little partisan, you might learn a little more respect for that constitutional system under the Texan plan than the Californian one.
JJWFromME // Jun 2, 2010 at 5:22 pm
The trouble with conservative views in education is that they often amount to “teach the controversy… that we created.” Or, “my dogwhistles to klansmen deserve equal time. Klansmen are people too.”
The best piece ever on how conservatives desperately try to establish the counter-establishment is this piece by Paul Krugman: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/opinion/05krugman.html
Bebe99 // Jun 2, 2010 at 7:17 pm
someotherdude: Sure, I can see that these folks aren’t very Christian at all. But they are promoting Christianity. Those of us who are not Christian might not bother to make too many distinctions when we don’t hear any denunciations of the theocratic ideas evangelicals promote.
Smarg // Jun 3, 2010 at 7:33 am
“The trouble with conservative views in education is that they often amount to “teach the controversy… that we created.” Or, “my dogwhistles to klansmen deserve equal time. Klansmen are people too.”
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Why do you Demoncraps always revert to the race card when losing an argument?? The only folks that pay attention now are from the MSM, and since the good people have Fox News, they are to be ignored. Chedda whatevah.
ottovbvs // Jun 3, 2010 at 9:17 am
Smarg // Jun 3, 2010 at 7:33 am
“Why do you Demoncraps always revert to the race card when losing an argument??”
……probably because conservatives like you are constantly making racist statements
Smarg // Jun 3, 2010 at 10:00 am
……probably because conservatives like you are constantly making racist statements
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Sez you.
JJWFromME // Jun 3, 2010 at 10:27 am
Rand Paul’s take on the CRA of 1964 put it all in a nutshell. Libertarianism never used to be popular in the south (Dixiecrats loved the New Deal)… until it was grafted onto the backlash against civil rights.
For more, see Lee Atwater:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#Atwater_on_the_Southern_Strategy
See Ronald Reagan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia,_Mississippi#Murders_of_three_civil_rights_workers
See Richard Nixon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Roots_of_the_Southern_strategy
JJWFromME // Jun 3, 2010 at 10:28 am
Rand Paul’s take on the CRA of 1964 put it all in a nutshell. Libertarianism never used to be popular in the south (Dixiecrats loved the New Deal)… until it was grafted onto the backlash against civil rights.
For more, see Lee Atwater:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#Atwater_on_the_Southern_Strategy
See Ronald Reagan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia,_Mississippi#Murders_of_three_civil_rights_workers
JJWFromME // Jun 3, 2010 at 10:50 am
See Richard Nixon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Roots_of_the_Southern_strategy
mpolito // Jun 3, 2010 at 11:54 am
Kids today go through school without learning anything about civics. They instead are taught about how they should be having sex right now, “tolerance,” and global warming. Anything that can be done to fight back against this should be done.
Lefties have no problem “politicizing education”: they have been doing it since the 60s. The L.A. USD School Board has declared that students there will be taught that the AZ immigration law is ‘un-American.’ Conservatives have no choice but to respond.
JJWFromME // Jun 3, 2010 at 12:04 pm
“They instead are taught about how they should be having sex right now, “tolerance,” and global warming.”
Right. My wife the high school teacher teaches her kids that they should be having sex. And there is no science behind global warming.
Are you for real?
(School textbooks from Texas would tell you you are… )
Rabiner // Jun 3, 2010 at 12:24 pm
mpolitio:
”
Kids today go through school without learning anything about civics. They instead are taught about how they should be having sex right now, “tolerance,” and global warming. Anything that can be done to fight back against this should be done.
Lefties have no problem “politicizing education”: they have been doing it since the 60s. The L.A. USD School Board has declared that students there will be taught that the AZ immigration law is ‘un-American.’ Conservatives have no choice but to respond.”
Sex education in health class is warranted so students engage in protected sex as opposed to unprotected sex. Are you still of the belief that teenagers aren’t sexually active? Is there a problem with teaching ‘tolerance’? That seems like a social goal that in a diverse country that we tolerate the differences since you can’t really teach ‘acceptance’. And please link to me where LAUSD has the power to change state curriculum and influence text books for 30 some states for the next 10 years?
LFC // Jun 3, 2010 at 3:00 pm
They instead are taught about [snip] global warming.
Oh, you mean “science”. Yeah, I can see how that would get a far right-winger all stirred up. Can’t be teachin’ that left-wind science stuff unless it backs the right-wing predetermined view.
sinz54 // Jun 4, 2010 at 10:27 am
sparty:
Go read my post again.
And then why don’t you go read Zinn’s ghastly “textbook” for yourself.
It really comes down to this:
It doesn’t matter if you’re liberal or conservative or moderate. For 180 years, the traditional mainstream view in America was that the United States had done much more good than harm for both its own people and the rest of the world. But since the 1970s there was a tremendous push by New Left radicals who went into education to teach American kids that their country basically sucks.
I don’t want a sanitized view taught.
I want kids to learn what mistakes America made along the way.
But I also don’t want to leave kids with the entirely false impression that the United States is just some racist, imperialist, colonialist, misbegotten aggressor that is wrecking the Earth and that should never have been created on top of land that once belonged to the Indians.
Those radical leftists, like Zinn, who hold that view are wrong.
The world is much better off–MUCH better off–that the United States existed than if the British had won in 1776.
And that is a message that mainstream liberals as well as conservatives ought to sign up to.
JJWFromME // Jun 4, 2010 at 11:11 am
Teaching Zinn in high school would be inappropriate unless he was given proper context (a competing view, for instance). I don’t think a Zinn history book is the equivalent of a high school history textbook intended for a general audience of students.
jakester // Jun 4, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Honestly Texas should be able to put whatever they want in a text book. But why should the text book industry be so lame that they can’t print different editions for different places? Why is Texas the lead dog on text books? that is like letting a barely literate student be the commencement speaker
drham3rd // Jun 4, 2010 at 4:54 pm
This can be a non-issue since the Internet could actually make textbooks obsolete. If kids were taught how to find and evaluate information online, any teacher could allow the net to be their textbook. This would simply negate this whole issue. Of course the publishing world might suffer BUT why should our education system have to depend upon a 19th century tool!
drham3rd // Jun 4, 2010 at 5:02 pm
This is a Non-Issue because of the Internet! Teachers do not need textbooks, they simply need to teach students how to properly search and interpret information on the net. There is so much good information that students could access and learn from that we DO NOT need to keep using a 19th century tool!