

Publishers Resist Pressure to Undermine Evolution in Texas Science Textbooks - cpleppert
http://www.tfn.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7737

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jared314
Evolution is not the only thing they have been diluting. They have been
removing hispanics, racism, and hip-hop from the history curriculum for years.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/texas-education-
boa...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/texas-education-board-
app_n_497440.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?_r=0)

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mjn
It's disconcerting how fast the state has gone downhill. I went to high school
there 1996-2000, and it was a reasonably sane place. George W. Bush was
governor, but in his pre-presidency years, he was basically a moderate
conservative. The school I went to was pretty reasonable, and apart from the
somewhat eyebrow-raising exception of Ayn Rand being required reading in
English class, and the generic patriotic skew in the U.S. History curriculum
that you'd get anywhere in the U.S., the curriculum seemed pretty middle-of-
the-road.

At some point in the early 2000s, though, the place got taken over by some
kind of hodge-podge of far-right nutjobs. I don't think I would send my kids
to school in Texas, nowadays.

~~~
saryant
I graduated from a Texas high school in 2008 (brain fart, original said 2012).
We didn't read Ayn Rand or anything right-wing, no one pushed evolution and
the education I received was 100x better than that of the high school I first
attended in California (a school which just cancelled all AP classes).

Of the students from my CA high school, only a few went on to college from
what I've gleaned off Facebook. Almost everyone from my graduating class in
Texas did so. Education was actually valued (and funded!) in stark contrast to
the first school.

I, for one, am incredibly glad I switched to that Texas school.

~~~
smtddr
Looking at this article & the comment from jared314[1], do you think they
taught enough history about America's relationship with Hispanics and racism?
Did they talk about evolution as a "fact" or in the context of some "crazy
idea"? Did they talk about slavery in the context of a "great sin" or just
something like "oops, well water under the bridge"[2]? And finally, were there
any african-americans or other minorities in your school? Are their opinions
about Texas school system almost always different from your own, or roughly
the same, or no notable difference from non-minorities?

1\.
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6578954](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6578954)

2\.
[http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/water+under+the+bridge](http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/water+under+the+bridge)

~~~
saryant
Sorry, brain fart. I meant 2008. I graduated from college in 2012. In any
case, I didn't take a Texas state history course. Slavery was certainly
covered in the US history course (and I got an extra dose as I participated in
Academic Decathlon the year they chose the Civil War as their topic).

