UNITED STATES
Lesson plan: Culture Wars 101
Subject matter: The Texas Board of Education ignited an international firestorm last spring when members approved a controversial new social studies curriculum. The new standards skew hard to the right -- championing American capitalism throughout and suggesting religious intentions on the part of the founding fathers.
Some of the most notable arguments were over language surrounding U.S. imperialism (now known as "expansionism") and birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger as a promoter of "eugenics," and an amendment to teachers that students be instructed to "describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association." The board even recommended that Thomas Jefferson, creator of the expression "separation of church and state" be excluded from a list of world thinkers who inspired Enlightenment-era revolutions. And, in a salute to Democrats, "Bill Clinton's impeachment" will join Watergate in lessons on "political scandals."
The curriculum standards are reviewed every decade and serve as a template for textbook publishers. Texas's 4.8 million public school students make the state one of the largest markets for textbooks and a determinant of what the rest of the country's schoolchildren will study, with national publishers often tailoring their texts to Texas standards.
Primary source: The new curriculum hasn't hit textbooks yet, but pop quizzes are expected to have a slightly different look -- Newsweek recently published new study exercises that the Texas school board is likely to adopt:
"Explain how Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict." And "Evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty.
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