Texas Conservatives Set the Standards for History Textbooks

And given that Texas is the largest market for these books they will have an effect on textbooks nationwide:

The State Board of Education tentatively approved new standards for social studies Friday with members divided along party lines — some blasting them as a fraud and conservative whitewash, others praising them as a tribute to the Founding Fathers that rightly portrays America as an exceptional country.

The standards, which will influence history and government textbooks arriving in public schools in fall 2011, were adopted by 10 Republicans against five Democrats after weeks of debate and across a racial and ideological chasm that seemed to grow wider as the proposal was finalized Thursday.

The document faces a public hearing and a final board vote in May.

The often contentious process has been watched closely across the nation, particularly this week as the board gathered to debate and vote on the proposed standards. Because of Texas' size, decisions by the board on what should and should not be included can influence publishers whose textbooks may be adopted by other states.

Democrats on the board — all of them black or Hispanic — complained the new standards dilute minority contributions to Texas and U.S. history.

“We have been about conservative versus liberal. We have manipulated the standards to insist on what we want to be in the document, regardless whether it's appropriate,” said Mavis Knight, D-Dallas. “We are perpetrating a fraud on the students of this state.”

But Terri Leo, R-Spring, called the proposal “a world class document” and told her Democratic colleagues the board has “included more minorities and historical events than ever before ... I am very disappointed at those allegations because they are simply not true.”

Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, said the proposed standards reflect the desires of his constituents to emphasize “personal responsibility and accountability” and “to honor our Founding Fathers, and our military.”

Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, said the standards ignore the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, Texas Rangers “killing Mexican-Americans without justification” and the U.S. Army's role in the attempted extermination of American Indians.

“Until we are ready to tell the truth about history, we don't have a good history or a good social studies curriculum for Texas,” she said.

She had failed in an attempt earlier in the meeting to get the history standards to identify Tejanos who fell defending the Alamo.

The board majority's conservative approach to “culture, government and the changing political landscape” was impossible 13 years ago when the social studies curriculum last was updated, said David Bradley, R-Beaumont.

“There's been a cultural and political shift in Texas, at least in the policy-making level,” he said. “We all represent a constituency. Elections matter.”

For decades libs have been trying to rewrite history by removing the influence of prominent white men and replacing them with overstated bios of minorities and women (see previous item on this controversy). When they start removing Neil Armstrong and replacing him with Famous Amos you know you've got a problem.

It's very similar to what Disney did with their "Golden Dreams" show at California Adventure which purported to show the history of California. It was little more than political correct agitprop which I named "The We Hate White People Movie" the first time I saw it the day after the park opened. To watch that movie you'd think Caucasians had nothing to do with the development of the state. The show has since closed, thank goodness, before future generations could be brainwashed with that nonsense.

History is about facts and giving inflated importance to someone just because of race, gender, or sexual preference is both factually inaccurate and harmful to the proper understanding of events.