It speaks for itself:
Texas’ New Textbooks
Because of a belief that academia skews too far to the left, the Texas Board of Education voted 10 to 5 in favor of buying history and social studies textbooks that adhere to a more conservative ideology. Here are some of the changes they are mandating:
- Inserting paragraph clarifying that the poor guy Rosa Parks wouldn’t give up her seat for was on crutches and really needed to give his dogs a rest; also, he later died
- More focus on civic issues, particularly the separation of church and infidel
- Discussion of the debate between liberal and conservative geologists about what constitutes an “igneous” rock
- Tamping down traditional pro-Stalin stance
- Special ethnic world history appendix
- Expanded section on Latino contribution to American landscaping
- Dividing number of Vietnamese civilian casualties by two due to their small stature
- Christopher Columbus was for lower taxes but all the Native Americans he encountered wanted to do was spend, spend, spend
Popularity: 5% [?]
The Daily Show had great coverage of this Texas school board story in 3/17 episode http://ow.ly/1qwci
“A belief that academia skews too far to the left?” Are you serious. No belief is required…it is a solid truth. It is also destroying our country. I’m afraid fixing textbooks isn’t going to achieve the necessary righting of the ship, though. A preponderance of the public and higher education system in the U.S. is not teaching truth, but liberal dogma.
This is not by accident. It stems from a systematic effort to quell constitutional, conservative and libertarian thought, supplanting it with ideology that more resembles that of Stalinist Russia than Thomas Jefferson’s America. Even this post was “skewed” to the left: “Tamping down pro-Stalin stance.” It’s ridiculous that we, as Americans, would have an ounce of pro-Stalin sympathy. He was nothing but a murderous letch of a dictator. Doesn’t anybody on the left read history? I’d love to hear the argument for a pro-Stalinist stance.
Norcross exemplifies why there are no good conservative comedians. Ya just don’t get it.
Norcross evidencing the kind of reading comprehension it takes to land on that Texas Board of Ed. I know there are smart conservative christians who can read but there must be a secret oath they all swear never to appear anywhere on the internet.
Thank you so much for the laugh! Good healthy laughing, and then another, even more fun, when author Norcross mentions my main man Thomas Jefferson, who has been removed from the Texas textbooks regarding his role in the creation of our country! So much fun you can have with that one. Just imagine how many public schools exist in the USA with his name as their title.
Bad news is my wife said we were leaving the country if this happened in Texas, and unlike the gutless Rush Limbaugh who promised to leave if health care reform bill passed, and then rescinded, ( he actually reconciled), my wife is no wimpy Rush. We will not be leaving for any Stalinist type country!
Norcross, buddy, thank you for speaking up for conservative Amerikkka. Before spewing though, you might bother to look up what the Onion is. And while you’re at it, maybe join the campaign to outlaw that insanely potent hydrogen dioxide. It has killed far more people than Stalin ever did, yet it is still legal. We need to keep our kids safe from all illegal chemicals and leftist thoughts, lest they grow up to actually be able to think for themselves!
“A preponderance of the public and higher education system in the U.S. is not teaching truth, but liberal dogma. This is not by accident. It stems from a systematic effort to quell constitutional, conservative and libertarian thought, supplanting it with ideology that more resembles that of Stalinist Russia than Thomas Jefferson’s America.” -Norcross
Obviously, Norcross is not familiar with the Onion’s satirical and often hilarious rag, but one wonders what he does read or whether he gets his information solely from talk radio. Also, I don’t know if or where he has gone to school, but in my experience as an educator and a student, most K-12 social studies or civics lessons, if anything, lean more toward blind patriotism than the left or the right. If schools are failing on this front it is because teachers usually play it safe, avoid conflict and controversy, and thus too often avoid a study of political science that asks students to apply critical thinking to ideas coming from a wide variety of political philosophies.
As for higher education, I think Norcross and others sometimes confuse political liberalism with liberal education (as advocated by folks like the Phi Beta Kappa Society https://www.pbk.org/infoview/PBK_InfoView.aspx?t=&id=8 ). Like others in Phi Beta Kappa, I bemoan what appears to be the relative loss a liberal arts and sciences education for most students, supplanted instead by schools focused primarily on specific types of training for specific skills or careers. If more students experienced a truly liberal education they would be able to, for example, recognize satire without having to have someone spell it out for them, or choose between political philosophies after a thorough and unbiased investigation of each.
Now, to be fair to Norcross, I believe it is true that more educators are Democrats (note I did not write “Stalinists”) and relatively few are Republicans. Why is that? Whose fault is that? I do not believe it is a “systematic effort” but rather an accident of the way education has evolved, and it is due in no small part to the personality types of those more likely to enter a helping profession like schooling.
So, do blue states have a higher average education level because they are blue, or are they blue because they are more highly educated? Hmmm… Do blue states provide greater per capita funding for education than red states? Interesting… Could it be that Democrats are more willing to spend tax dollars on education because they know that more Democrats than Republicans will apply for teaching positions and then teach the children to vote Democrat!!! OMG!!! Norcross it right!!! Education IS a government plot to take over the hearts and minds of our children!!! Talk about sending your kids into the mouth of the beast!!!
Wait a minute…maybe this is why Bush so wanted to have “accountability” by requiring tests like the CSAP. By demanding schools teach to a test wherein there are no gray areas, no room for debate, no Social Studies (OMG!!!), but rather, mere reading comprehension, math calculation, and regurgitation, well, schools just won’t have time for that liberal arts and sciences stuff. OMG!!! NCLB is a plot to dismantle the liberal educational establishment one mind at a time by reducing schooling to test-taking training grounds focused solely on the 3R’s!!!
Wait a minute, who advocated for the federal lunch program? It seems like a lefty thing, but maybe the right went along with it because they knew all along that the cafeterias would become training grounds for obesity, and the children would then, in their sluggish, pre-diabetic state, test poorly, drop out more frequently, and prove that our schools are failing!!! OMG!!! The Dems just wanted to be helpful and look what’s happening!!!
But you know what really gets me about this Texas Board of Education thing? If they really were conservative, if they really believed in liberty like our founding fathers, wouldn’t they want to give educators the freedom to teach whatever the educators deemed important? I mean, for a bunch of conservatives they sure seem to favor some pretty nit-picky government intrusion. Not to mention that they did not even consider adding to the study of evolution the theory that aliens are the missing link… THAT really gets my goat! (I added that last part because, after all, satire is funny when it contains a kernel of truth.)