I didn’t want to believe it. At first, I reasoned that the furor must be overblown. But when I read the article in the New York Times detailing the Texas Board of Education’s recent vote to change the social studies curriculum, a change that affects the subjects of history, sociology, and economics, all I could think, after wiping the tears from my eyes, was “Fail. Major, major fail.”
Though a panel of teachers originally wrote the curriculum standards, the majority Republican board passed 100 amendments to the curriculum, claiming that academia is far too liberal. Apparently, by liberal they mean educated and open-minded.
I won’t launch into an explanation of all l00 amendments, since you can read those for yourself (and I encourage you to do so). They include such egregious political plays such as removing Thomas Jefferson from the list of figures whose writing influenced revolution (the conservatives on the board don’t like his stance on separation of church and state), and actually defending McCarthyism. It’s not unlike the heavy-handed tactics of the Roman Empire to keep everyone in line and convince them to love, or at least fear, the great and almighty Empire. (By the way, one of the major themes of the gospel of Matthew is challenging the superiority and might of an Empire that oppresses the poor and engages in violence. But I doubt that tidbit will find its way into the curriculum).
Why the big fuss around the country? Granted, Texas is one of our largest states, but if they want to raise ignorant children, what is that to the rest of us?
First, because Texas purchases such a vast number of textbooks, their standards affect what textbooks companies publish, thus affecting the selection for the rest of the country. Advances in publishing technology and online resources will diminish this influence somewhat, but the impact is still significant.
Second, this could lead to an even greater imbalance in the quality of education between the economic classes. After this major curriculum overhaul, moderate and liberal parents with resources are more likely than ever to send their children to more progressive private schools, leaving behind the lower-middle class and lower-class students and gouging from the public schools resources such as the time and money of parents with more flexibility and greater economic advantage.
Third, this revised curriculum will not better equip students for post-secondary education in a country whose universities attract an increasingly international student body. American students compete not only with one another for post-secondary opportunities, but also with millions of students world-wide from countries with rigorous and progressive educational standards.
What do we do? Local educator and sociologist Elyse Max said, “the situation in Texas emphasizes the need for national content standards, which are underway. So, if you pass high school in Texas, for example, you would have to master the same information as students in California. [The revised Texas curriculum] takes away academic freedom from teachers, and the responsibility to teach politics and religion shouldn’t be based on a school board decision.” As an educator in an administration role, Max communicates regularly with the Kansas Board of Regents about the most critical classroom standards. A national list of required basic content standards would help ensure more equality in education while giving teachers, educated an trained in their specific fields, the freedom to choose a curriculum that both teaches those standards and is appropriate for their unique settings.
In the mean time, parents who fear their children may be receiving an overly-conservative education may want to supplement the classroom textbooks with more enlightening literature. Here are a few dangerous books with which to begin.
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