The full news story: http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com
[free subscription required to get current week’s story emailed to you.]
[Links and footnotes added by HALC.us staff and in no way
represent the views of Peter Morrison Report.com’s author.]
Summary of this week’s report:
There’s a battle raging in Texas public schools. Race based lobbies and multicultural social engineers would like to rewrite textbooks by ignoring or downplaying the importance of some historical figures because they’re the wrong race, while vastly overstating the importance of others simply because they were members of a different race. The education of our children shouldn’t be politicized and distorted to placate race based pressure groups. We need to get involved to ensure that our kids get the best education possible, not the one that’s the most PC.
Full report:
Few institutions are as important as our public schools when it comes to the future of Texas and our nation. It’s true that the numbers of children in private schools and home schooling are growing, but they don’t come close to public school enrollment. It’s impossible to overstate how much influence our public schools have on future generations. It’s critically important that our children get the best education possible, and that we don’t use our schools for experiments in radical social engineering. Nor should we rewrite the history of Texas and the United States to placate secularist liberals and aggressive race based activist groups.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what is at risk of happening these days. For better or for worse, the content of public school curricula in Texas are determined by Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). In the words of the Texas Education Agency “the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS, comprise the state-mandated curriculum that establish what every student, from elementary school through high school, should know and be able to do.” Because schools and teachers are judged by the results their students achieve on the standardized Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) tests, there isn’t much leeway in classrooms these days. The textbook publishers have to conform to the TEKS and then schools follow the TEKS guidelines by the book.
TEKS guidelines are established by committees which are under the authority of the State Board of Education. Once TEKS curriculum standards are set, they remain in place for approximately ten years, affecting hundreds of thousands of Texas school students. This year the Social Studies TEKS guidelines are up for review, and I was on the 6th grade committee helping to make the decisions about what to add, keep, or take out. I was shocked to personally witness just how race based and politicized the TEKS process has become. The TEKS were created to ensure that our kids get an excellent education that not only prepares them to compete in a high tech economy, but also instills in all of them an appreciation for the truly outstanding figures in American history who made this country what it is today.
Regrettably, TEKS no longer revolves around these worthy goals. Instead, it has become a battleground where liberal ideologues and powerful racial lobby groups attempt to rewrite the history of Texas and the United States to suit their multicultural agendas. Making sure our children learn the actual history of this country isn’t nearly as important to them as it is to average people like you and me. As a result, the Christian heritage of America and Texas is downplayed or ignored altogether, and many important figures are being left out of our history books in favor of others who have actually had little impact on our history, but have the right skin color.
One of the examples of this bias is Cesar Chavez. Chavez was a minor labor organizer who had little impact on American history. Nevertheless, TEKS standards elevate him to the same stature as Benjamin Franklin, one of the most remarkable men who ever lived, and whose accomplishments played an integral role in the founding of America. Peter Marshall, who has written extensively on American history, was one of six experts the committee consulted about these changes. Marshall spoke out against this travesty: “To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin is ludicrous. Chavez is hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation.”
To any impartial observer, it’s painfully obvious what is taking place with these TEKS committees. More and more, people aren’t being included in textbooks for Texas school children because of their actual accomplishments, or the vital role they played in shaping our state or nation. They’re increasingly being selected because of their gender or race. Hispanic activist groups are flexing their muscles to see to it that history is told their way. They say it’s important to emphasize Hispanics in our social studies textbooks, because Hispanic kids will soon be the majority in Texas schools. However, I believe there is something fundamentally racist with the mindset that our students cannot appreciate the historical contributions of other great Americans just because they are of a different ethnicity.
The end result is that to make room for a politically correct multicultural list of more diverse individuals, more significant people in American history get ignored or downplayed. Giants of American history like John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Samuel Adams have to give way. I personally witnessed a committee member dismissing Founding Fathers such as these as “dead white guys.” Even Presidents FDR and Eisenhower were subjected to the same slur. These “dead white guys” are being replaced by people such as Hector P. Garcia, Irma Rangel, Sandra Cisneros and Dolores Huerta. Most Texans wouldn’t recognize any of these names. That’s because none of them did anything that was comparably noteworthy; they’re included only because of their race.
As a member of the TEKS committee I spoke out against this pandering to aggressive racial lobbies, which is nothing less than reverse discrimination and racism. Sadly, I was alone in that argument. I agree with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who wrote in one of his court opinions that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Choosing some people for inclusion in textbooks only because they’re a certain race, while denying inclusion to far more worthy figures because they’re from the wrong race, is reprehensible. It’s rewriting history in order to pander to left wing racist groups. Not only will it cheat our kids out of a real education, it will also further divide Americans by race. No possible good can come out of this intellectually dishonest practice.
This is a crucial area in education where conservatives have been missing in action. By law, TEKS committees are supposed to be comprised of a broad spectrum of people from all walks of life. If that were truly the situation, a lot of this racist nonsense wouldn’t be taking place. Unfortunately, in spite of what the law says, the vast majority of committee members are professional academics with liberal biases. More Texans from all walks of life need to become involved in these committees if they want to have a voice in what is being taught in the classroom. If you’re a conservative who’s opposed to a rewriting of history to placate left wing racial lobbies, contact the State Board of Education and let them know you want to serve on one of the TEKS committees. Start attending SBOE meetings and demand that our children have great textbook standards. Get in touch with your representative on the SBOE, and insist that they come up with TEKS that teach the actual history of our great state and nation, instead of distorting it to please radical minority groups. Our children are the future of Texas and they should not be defrauded of the best possible education in the name of multiculturalism.
Take action:
Please send a fax to the Chairwomen of the SBOE and SBOE Committee on Instruction asking them to protect our heritage from left-wing ideologues:
http://www.morrisonreport.com/fax_test/index.php?faxID=81
Also, please call your SBOE member and ask them to reject these liberal TEKS standards and demand our students be taught real American history:
http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/
Sources:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/53316762.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6575074.htmlhttp://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/08/17/01texas.h28.html?tkn=MQLFiZEdywpwGmgY45MEsnzEJHqmmuTfdEof
The Peter Morrison Report
PO Box 8742, Lumberton, TX 77657, USA
http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Peter-Morrison/70301468419
