Texas Republican primary ballot proposal #4

[drkitten]

No. And that is evidence that, in Texas, every subject is taught "with a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias"?

Have you been following the recent news coming out of the state board of education?

They're specifically pushing for every subject to be taught with an explicitly conservative and pro-Christian bias.

I'd say that an official set of teaching standards that mandate "a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias" is pretty good evidence.

Mind you, creationists have occupied the White House for over 200 years.

Really? So, these "creationists" would include Thomas Jefferson?

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Have you been following the recent news coming out of the state board of education?{snip}

Ummm, did you miss this post:

Is this your way of saying that you have no evidence to back up your claim? Look, I live in Texas. I attended high school here (after attending California schools) and received a BS degree from a Texas public university. I don't recall any of the bias you claim exists. My child goes to public school here, and I'd be peeved if such bias existed in her curriculum. So I'm all for hearing evidence of the extreme bias you claim exists. So far, you've failed to provide any.

or fail to notice his location is Austin, Texas... you know, where the state capital is... and where this state BoE circus is likely on the nightly news, well, literally nightly?

Obviously he is utterly ignorant of what's going in with the state BoE or what's being taught currently in Texas public schools.

 

[mortimer]

Ummm, did you miss this post:

or fail to notice his location is Austin, Texas... you know, where the state capital is... and where this state BoE circus is likely on the nightly news, well, literally nightly?

Obviously he is utterly ignorant of what's going in with the state BoE or what's being taught currently in Texas public schools.

I've been following it quite closely, and I find it abhorrent. It still isn't evidence that every subject in Texas public schools is being taught "with a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias". If that were the case, I'm sure it'd be simple to find some evidence, like a passage from a science book, an English book, and a history book currently in use in Texas that demonstrates that bias.

Wonder why nobody has done so.

 

[Towlie]

Mind you, creationists have occupied the White House for over 200 years.

I'm trying to figure out your point here, considering that Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species only 150 years ago.

 

[mortimer]

I'm trying to figure out your point here, considering that Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species only 150 years ago.

The point is, having creationists in power doesn't necessarily mean that creationism, and other forms of anti-science, makes it into the classroom curriculum.

The day that happens is the same day I pull my daughter out of public school. But to be honest, I think the ideas, attitudes, and critical thinking skills taught at home will have a much greater effect on her than a textbook ever will.

I just have a problem with attitudes I see here that Texas is some back-water state that teaches "a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias" in every subject. If you want to provide evidence that this is the case, feel free. Or you can retract your claim.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Congrats. You've shown an opinion piece that claims that the creationists on the Texas Board of Education want to introduce creationism in Texas science textbooks. They likely do.

What you have completely failed to do is show even a tiny bit of evidence that Texas public schools teach every subject with a "strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias". I'm not surprised.

Have you been keeping up with how the Texas State BoEd has been messing around with the social studies & history standards? That would see to indicate to me a "strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity" bias on their part. Btw, they recently passed those whacked out standards

Now, of course, that doesn't mean that every public school in Texas is going down the rabbit hole, but it certainly gives a lot of political cover to those digging ever deeper.

ETA: I think in just about any state you can find schools that teach b.s. to kids, there are certainly more than a few in Illinois despite us having (in my opinion) standards superior to Texas. The problem in Texas is that you have a top-down mandate from the BoEd which encourages schools to spread b.s. nonsense, while simultaneously providing political cover for those schools who might otherwise run afoul of parents, students, and groups who would challenge them on pushing such nonsense.

 

[MattusMaximus]

I've been following it quite closely, and I find it abhorrent. It still isn't evidence that every subject in Texas public schools is being taught "with a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias". If that were the case, I'm sure it'd be simple to find some evidence, like a passage from a science book, an English book, and a history book currently in use in Texas that demonstrates that bias.

Wonder why nobody has done so.

Probably because the BoEd has just recently passed the new textbook standards. You'll be seeing the stupidity in Texas textbooks within the next year or so.

 

[Thunder]

i want the word "Allah" plastered over every single NYC govt. building.

 

[MattusMaximus]

i want the word "Allah" plastered over every single NYC govt. building.

 

[fuelair]

Link



Thoughts?

Vacuum inhales feces. IMHO.

 

[drkitten]

Ummm, did you miss this post:

or fail to notice his location is Austin, Texas... you know, where the state capital is... and where this state BoE circus is likely on the nightly news, well, literally nightly?

Obviously he is utterly ignorant of what's going in with the state

Quite obviously he is, or he wouldn't be asking for evidence that the state is adjusting the teaching standards to reflect the right-wing pro-Christian bias under discussion, or asking for evidence that teachers need to teach in accordance with the standards.

Just because someone lives in Texas doesn't make them not an ill-informed idiot. I suspect quite the opposite.

 

[Towlie]

I just have a problem with attitudes I see here that Texas is some back-water state that teaches "a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias" in every subject. If you want to provide evidence that this is the case, feel free. Or you can retract your claim.

If you have a problem with that claim then you have a problem with reality. Here are over six million, five hundred seventy thousand bits of evidence that the situation in your state is much worse than you apparently think it is.

 

[drkitten]

The point is, having creationists in power doesn't necessarily mean that creationism, and other forms of anti-science, makes it into the classroom curriculum.

No, of course not. Teachers are completely free to ignore the curriculum that is set by state law, buy their own textbooks to replace the ones that were hand-picked by the state board and shipped at state expense to the classroom, and to teach any material they want without regard to the official TAKS tests.

And no one in the school administration could possibly have any objection to that kind of roll-your-own approach to curriculum.

I just have a problem with attitudes I see here that Texas is some back-water state that teaches "a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias" in every subject.

You have a problem with attitudes. I have a problem with the reality that produces that attitude. If you want to fix the attitude, fix the underlying reality.

 

[mortimer]

If you have a problem with that claim then you have a problem with reality. Here are over six million, five hundred seventy thousand bits of evidence that the situation in your state is much worse than you apparently think it is.

You're going to use the number of Google hits for "texas textbooks" as evidence? Really?

 

[drkitten]

You're going to use the number of Google hits for "texas textbooks" as evidence? Really?

No. He's going to use the millions of articles that Google finds as evidence. It's not the number, it's the contents.

For example, link #4 (on my view, at least, is a HuffPo article stating that "A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.

Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas (replacing with “the writings of”) and to Thomas Jefferson. She adds Thomas Aquinas and others. Jefferson’s ideas, she argues, were based on other political philosophers listed in the standards. We don’t buy her argument at all. Board member Bob Craig of Lubbock points out that the curriculum writers clearly wanted to students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson. Could Dunbar’s problem be that Jefferson was a Deist? The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards."

So, we eliminate Jefferson (a Deist) and replace him with Aquinas (a Catholic theologian). In what way is this not a "right-wing pro-Christian bias"?

To continue from the HuffPo article, "Ultraconservatives wielded their power over hundreds of subjects this week, introducing and rejecting amendments on everything from the civil rights movement to global politics."

Hundreds of subjects this week.




Let me turn it around. Can you cite a single piece of actual evidence that the recent changes are anything other than a state mandate to teach with "a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias." If that's not what it is, what is it?

 

[Towlie]

You're going to use the number of Google hits for "texas textbooks" as evidence? Really?

No, I'm not using the number itself as evidence, I'm pointing you to that number of individual pieces of evidence. It's precisely what you've repeatedly demanded, but now that it's been provided to you I get the impression that you intend to ignore it. Am I right?

 

[Almo]

I have yet to see any evidence that classroom teachers in Texas are no longer teaching evolution (or casting doubt on it) just because bureaucrats adopted a flawed set of state science standards.

They didn't teach evolution or sex-ed in Biology when I was in high school in Texas. The teacher side-stepped it by saying he couldn't teach it but that it would be useful if we read certain chapters.

 

[rwguinn]

No, I'm not using the number itself as evidence, I'm pointing you to that number of individual pieces of evidence. It's precisely what you've repeatedly demanded, but now that it's been provided to you I get the impression that you intend to ignore it. Am I right?

Well, since the text books used in Texas end up in the majority of the other States, that must mean your Boards of Education totally agree with Texas, then, huh?
What a bunch of sheeple...

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well, since the text books used in Texas end up in the majority of the other States, that must mean your Boards of Education totally agree with Texas, then, huh?

No it is that no one wants to cater the BOE of some small town, they are not a large enough market to bother with. As Texas is the largest single buyer for text books, they have a strong effect on what most publishers will make.

 

[drkitten]

Well, since the text books used in Texas end up in the majority of the other States, that must mean your Boards of Education totally agree with Texas, then, huh?

No, it means you can't buy what isn't for sale.