Austin Improv

I normally keep this kind of stuff to myself, but this is too important.

There will be a "Texans for Truthful Textbooks" rally this Sunday (the 16th) at 11AM on the Capitol steps. For those of you unfamiliar with the proposed changes to Texas' textbooks and curriculum here are a few fun proposed revisions:

-Thomas Jefferson is to be removed from a World History standard on Enlightenment thinkers who have influenced political revolutions around the world, replacing him with John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, and William Blackstone.

-Standards will suggest that the anti-communism "witch hunts" led by Joseph McCarthy were justified.

-A section is to be added on the alleged "Conservative Resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s", overstating the historical significance of this movement.

-Religious rights will no longer be discussed during lessons on the 1st amendment nor will the question of why the framers banned the government from promoting one religion over another.

These are just the highlights, but anyone with any sense of history should be outraged over (if nothing else) the demotion of Jefferson from the pantheon of influential enlightenment figures in favor of say, Calvin; an anti-Semitic believer in mankind's total depravity (about as antithetical to the humanistic and self-deterministic ideals of the enlightenment as one can get).

Full disclosure. This event is sponsored by the Secular Coalition of America and American Atheists. However, it is my fervent hope that theists of any stripe will feel free to join non-theists in protesting - not religion - but blatant historical distortion. I hope to see some of you there.

-MPB

I will come and rally with you, Brockman.

Yay!

wish i could be there to show some Christian support for history (guess we got done attacking science and had to move on to something else...sigh...), but i fear the time renders it impossible for me. but i'll be there in spirit!

This just in:

Don McLeroy, a Republican board member from College Station, has circulated to board colleagues changes he plans to recommend next week when the board resumes debate over proposed new curriculum standards for social studies. Among the changes McLeroy wants to make:

-Add a standard to the eighth-grade U.S. history course that maintains separation of church and state was not the intent of the Founders who drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights: “Contrast the Founders’ intent relative to the wording of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause, with the popular term ‘Separation of church and state.’”

-Strike from a standard in the high school U.S. history course a 1948 court decision, Delgado v. Bastrop ISD, that barred segregation of students of Mexican descent in Texas public schools. McLeroy proposes replacing that decision with 2009 Supreme Court employment discrimination decision involving white firefighters in Connecticut (Ricci v. DeStefano) and a 2005 decision dealing with the government’s powers of eminent domain (Kelo v. City of New London).

-Change a high school U.S. history standard to downplay the positive impact of Progressive Era reforms and suggest that the work of the era’s reformers like Upton Sinclair, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. DuBois created a negative portrayal of America.

-Add a standard to high school U.S. history requiring students to “evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.”

As to that last, if they were referring to say, oil companies or trasnat banks, maybe I don't disagree - but I don't think that's what Mr. McLeroy has in mind.