Last year, I wrote an article entitled “Dear Texas Please Secede” that advocated kicking Texas out of the United States because it didn’t meet American standards for civilized behavior.
One of the 10 examples of Texas’ uncivilized behavior that I listed was “For decades it has destroyed the curriculum of 49 other states by telling publishers that they won't buy school textbooks unless important historical and scientific facts are removed.” In online debates about this subject, people have told me that my view about this subject is outdated because publishers today save various versions of their books via computer and, thus, can easily customize them for many clients before printing them.
Nevertheless, Texas is up to no good again. In fact, I found dozens of cartoons making fun of Texas’ contempt for teaching History accurately. The cartoon above jokes about teaching Christianity in a Social Studies class.
According to a Washington Post article entitled “Proposed Texas textbooks are inaccurate, biased and politicized, new report finds,” the Texas Board of Education has approved Social Studies textbooks for sixth through 12th graders in public schools that say Jewish people view Jesus Christ as an important prophet and schools for African-American children during the segregation era were “sometimes” lower in quality than schools for white children.
The Texas Board of Education is obsessed with imposing its pro-Christianity and pro-Confederate views on schoolchildren. It also doesn’t care about facts. It rejected the applications of more than a dozen college History teachers to be on its textbook panel, but accepted the application of a lifelong car dealer who decided after he retired to become a minister and run for political office as a Republican. Altogether, its 140-member panel includes only three teachers at Texas colleges.
A 10-member panel of scholars found so many errors in the textbooks that the Washington Post story summarizing their findings is 6,900 words. I’m not kidding. The scholars’ summary said:
* A number of Government and World History textbooks exaggerate Judeo-Christian influence on the nation’s founding and Western political tradition.
* Two Government textbooks include misleading information that undermines the Constitutional concept of the separation of church and state.
* Several World History and World Geography textbooks include biased statements that inappropriately portray Islam and Muslims negatively.
* All of the World Geography textbooks inaccurately downplay the role that conquest played in the spread of Christianity.
* Several World Geography and History textbooks suffer from an incomplete – and often inaccurate – account of religions other than Christianity.
* Coverage of key Christian concepts and historical events are lacking often due to the assumption that all students are Christians and already familiar with Christian events and doctrine.
* A few Government and U.S. History textbooks suffer from an uncritical celebration of the free enterprise system, both by ignoring legitimate problems that exist in capitalism and failing to include coverage of government’s role in the U.S. economic system.
* One Government textbook flirts with contemporary Tea Party ideology, particularly regarding the inclusion of anti-taxation and anti-regulation arguments.
* One World History textbook includes outdated – and possibly offensive – anthropological categories and racial terminology in describing African civilization.
* A number of U.S. History textbooks evidence a general lack of attention to Native American peoples and culture and occasionally include biased or misleading information.
* One Government textbook includes a biased – verging on offensive – treatment of affirmative action.
* Most U.S. History textbooks do a poor job of covering the history of LGBT citizens in discussions of efforts to achieve civil rights in this country.
* Elements of the Texas curriculum standards give undue legitimacy to neo-Confederate arguments about “states’ rights” and the legacy of slavery in the South.
As I mentioned earlier, my 2013 article that urged the removal of Texas from the USA listed the state’s deplorable behavior on textbooks as one of 10 reasons it should be kicked out. The other nine are:
* It has executed more people than the next six states combined, roughly 37 percent of the USA's executions, since 1976 although its high crime rate indicates that executions aren't preventing crime.
* A large percentage of the state's population is OK with executing innocent people, according to a Scripps Howard Texas poll.
* It lets football coaches control high school academic policy.
* It's common for parents to make children repeat a grade so they can dominate football games.
* It has wacky child-unfriendly zoning laws that make some of its cities look like Pottersville.
* It has contempt for people who are different.
* It has contempt for democracy (immediately after the Supreme Court ruled against a part of the Voting Rights Act, Texas moved to throw lots of people off the voting rolls).
* It disrespects people in need. Among other things, it is No. 1 in percentage of people without health insurance.
* It has a wacko pro-gun culture despite its high crime rate.
If I studied the topic long enough, I think I could find 50 reasons to kick Texas out of the USA.
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