Sunday, May 23, 2010

Students Lose in Texas

* It is a sad, sad, day for public education in Texas. With the right wing conservatives pushing through their re-write of American history, students will be given a slanted curriculum. One of the changes I heard about that the Texas Board of Education made in terms of teaching social studies included dropping the words "slave trade" from the social studies vocabulary. Now "slave trade" will be described as "the Atlantic triangular trade." Also included will be the coronation of Ronald Reagan, and the glorification of the "Moral Majority" movement (Note: They were neither moral nor a majority.) I'm sure the cultural, scientific, and academic contributions of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, women, and other minorities will be completely eliminated from the Texas new-fangled, right wing, conservative, social studies curriculum.

Can you imagine the ridicule and embarrassment that high school seniors will face when they realize that their social studies curriculum was different than the other 49 states? How will Texas students taking the SAT test respond to history questions? According to the SAT College Board, the U.S. History section of the SAT "..... assesses your knowledge of and ability to use material commonly taught in U.S. history and social studies courses in high school..."

In the future, students who graduate from Texas high schools under the new re-written conservative slanted history lessons, will have limited access to colleges outside of their state. Texas students in the future will continue to under perform on tests involving science (Texas is anti-evolution) and American history and government.