(Jan. 19) – "History is written by the victors," Winston Churchill famously said. In Texas, that may mean removing mention of Ted Kennedy and Cesar Chavez from textbooks in favor of new entries on the National Rifle Association and Phyllis Schlafly.

For much of the past year, the Texas State Board of Education has been considering changes to its social studies curriculum, hearing from community members and debating alterations to the way the state will teach history.

"I don't see any evidence that people are pursuing any political or personal agendas," Gail Lowe, the chair of the Texas State Board of Education, told The Daily Texan newspaper.

Many on the board, which is made up of 10 Republicans and five Democrats, seem to have concluded that Texas' classrooms have been infected with a liberal bias. As a result, the board has spent numerous hours hearing from members of the community on subjects such as whether labor activist Chavez and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall deserve space in history textbooks alongside founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin.

Also at issue is whether Christianity deserves more classroom time in the Lone Star State, and whether Abraham Lincoln deserves so much.

Last week, the board voted 7-6 to make some changes, so that the state standards will mandate that lessons include the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including anti-feminism advocate Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.

It wasn't clear which grades would be affected.

In a written statement, the measure's sponsor, board member Don McLeroy, explained why he believes the current textbooks are unacceptable and needed revising.

"These standards are rife with leftist political periods and events: the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society," McLeroy wrote. "Including material about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s provides some political balance to the document."

McLeroy also succeeded in making changes to how Sen. Joseph McCarthy will be taught, painting the man – whose use of Congress to investigate alleged communist behavior in the 1950s has been widely repudiated – in a more favorable light.

The board's preliminary vote has met with some opposition.

"When partisan politicians take a wrecking ball to the work of teachers and scholars, you get a document that looks more like a party platform than a social studies curriculum," Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, a group that monitors public education in the state, told the Houston Chronicle.

The final vote on the new standards will be held in May. There are 4 million children in the Texas public school system, making it the second-largest market for textbooks in the country. As a result, changes to the Texas curriculum are likely to impact other states as well.

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/texas-board-of-education-considers-making-history-lessons-more-conservative/19323135

I hope parents are paying attention to the conservative rhetoric they are trying to add to these books to be taught to the growing minds.

and thus continues the many interpretations of 'history'

on with making it an elective,,,,

Right. That's why the 'progressives' want 'history' taught from the 1870s on ... everything before that is just too 'inconvenient' to be taught 'cuz it conflicts with their agenda.

not so much,, Columbus' discovery is still there and so is the Constitution, both happened well before 1870