Some wonder why
high-school education is failing in the U.S. How about school boards changing the facts to fit their idological agenda? And that's not only
evolution v. creation.
After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light. (NYTimes)
You may think this is not surprising coming from Texas and who cares what happens in Texas if you live in a more civilized part of the country. Think again! Texas sets the tone when it comes to textbooks nationwide.
[W]hen it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas. The reasons for this are economic: Texas is the nation's second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy rather than leaving it up to the whims of local districts, which means publishers that get their books approved can count on millions of dollars in sales. As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers.
(.../...)
Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced to some degree by the more-liberal pull of California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014.(Wash Monthly)
This is what happens when you leave the content of education in the hands of a few ideologues and the tyranny of economics.
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