Once again Education is broken.

So I am sure everyone has heard about the Texas school board ruling on the content of books.  If not here is a short list of possible reading material:

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35839979/ns/us_news-education/
• http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/03/11/kelly-shackelford-texas-textbook-social-studies-standards-american-history/

So what happened?  They revised their content of the school books.  Why is it important?  Mostly because they changed a lot of stuff that a lot of people disagree with, in both ways.  So I thought I would weigh in on a bunch of the changes, since I am sure everyone cares what I think.  (Most of these are taken from the MSNBC article.)

As an aside, no government or political intervention should be done into textbooks.  In general I a free knowledge proponent.  Basically I think facts should be stated as fact and theories as theories.  Also I think more discussion and reading is better than none.

• BC and AD vs BCE and CE.  Texas is wrong in my opinion.  AD is completely wrong given current scholarly work on the death of Christ anyway.  It is dumb.  (Texas 0, Anti-Texas 1)
• Origin of Isreali Conflict.  This is a tough one, it really depends on how it is specified.  If the conflict is specified in a politically agnostic way then this is a win for Texas but I doubt it will be so I will give each side a 0.5.  (Texas 0.5, Anti-Texas 1.5)
• Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.  Win for Texas.  This shows a women in a powerful position and gives historical context to the era.  The reason the left doesn't like it I would imagine is that she was associated with Thatcher in England and more libertarian market principles.  (Texas 1.5, Anti-Texas 1.5)
• Second Amendment.   Not a win for Texas.  Unless of course the section specifies how all of the bill of rights can be applied to good citizenship.  (Texas 1.5, Anti-Texas 2.5)
• The conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.  Important because it gives a context to things that happened in politics after the long new deal era.  As long as the previous decades are correctly talked about in the context of the broader political significance.  (Texas 2.5, Anti-Texas 2.5)
• Phyllis Schlafly.  It is good to know the opposite side of discussions however I don't know why she was there.  Plus this is likely too specific for the age groups.  (Texas 2.5, Anti-Texas 3.5)
• The Contract With America.  Seems to me to be the pinnacle of the resurgence of conservative.  However I don't know why would point this out in isolation.  This sounds like a biased view of the contract so I am going 0.5 for each here.  (Texas 3.0, Anti-Texas 4.0)
• The Heritage Foundation.  This doesn't need to be talked about separately.  This is too specific for HS and younger kids. (Texas 3.0, Anti-Texas 5.0)
• The Moral Majority.  Again too specific.  Could be a passing comment in the resurgence section. (Texas 3.0, Anti-Texas 6.0)
• The National Rifle Association. Don't see why this is relevant.  They haven't done anything except protect the second amendment.  This should be in the same section as the ACLU.  (Texas 3.0, Anti-Texas 7.0)
• Violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent approach.  This is a tough one because it is an example of opposing forces for the same product.  It is also a good example of the triumph of nonviolent approaches and using the system to get change.  This is like talking about Gandhi in India.  I am going with a 0.25 because I think the Black Panthers will be misrepresented.  (Texas 3.25, Anti-Texas 7.75)
• Votes in Congress on civil rights legislation.  It was bipartisan to an extent.  Should be noted.  (Texas 4.25, Anti-Texas 7.75)
• Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek.  Absolutely.  However I question whether Keynes should be studied directly in HS anyway.  If you are going to study Keynes and economic history you need to include the works of Hayek and Friedman.  If not the students would get a very one sided view of government intervention in the economy.  (Texas 5.25, Anti-Texas 7.75)
• Hip-Hop.  Signficant.  Texas loses because all theydo is line dance.  (Texas 5.25, Anti-Texas 8.75)
• Trivializing Hispanics.  Bad, there are more than just cowboys and Christians in the world.  Texas loses 2 points for that.  (Texas 5.25, Anti-Texas 10.75)
• "laws of nature and nature's God". Sounds like a bad idea.  Government should be independent of the people.  This seems like a misleading requirement to represent history wrongly.  (Texas 5.25, Anti-Texas 11.75)
• "Democratic" to "Constitutional Republic."  This is correct.  (Texas 6.25, Anti-Texas 11.75)
• In addition to learning the Bill of Rights, the board specifies a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class. (Texas 6.25, Anti-Texas 11.75)
• "Analyze the decline of the U.S. dollar including abandonment of the gold standard."For a history course?  Maybe talk about it but to have a worksheet on it is likely dumb.  Texas Loses here.  (Texas 6.25, Anti-Texas 12.75)
• Germans and Italians were interned in the United States during World War II.   This happened and there are lots of reasons for this however this seems to downplay the amount of internment for Japanese Americans. (Texas 6.25, Anti-Texas 13.75)
• "How the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government." This seems to downplay the actual lesson here that the hearings were mostly unconstitutional and violated due process.  We'll give Texas 0.25 for that.  (Texas 6.5, Anti-Texas 15.5)
• "The importance of personal responsibility for life choices" in a section on teen suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders. However this seems to mistake the influence of external factors.  I'll give each 0.5 because in the end people need to be accountable for their decisions.  (Texas 7, Anti-Texas 16)

So we can see since 16 > 7 and no one required anti-counting in Texas that Texas has some problems with their standards.  It seems like the board has some points that the history should be taught in a more even handed manner giving weight to more sides of the stories given current knowledge.  However it seems a little over-handed in some cases.