Why has the Texas Board of Education decided to eliminate any references to Thomas Jefferson anyways?

[Mexigrl]

The ugly story:

The Texas Board of Education has been meeting this week to revise its social studies curriculum. During the past three days, “the board’s far-right faction wielded their power to shape lessons on the civil rights movement, the U.S. free enterprise system and hundreds of other topics”:

– To avoid exposing students to “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the Board struck the curriculum’s reference to “sex and gender as social constructs.”

– The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

– The Board refused to require that “students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others.”

– The Board struck the word “democratic” from the description of the U.S. government, instead terming it a “constitutional republic.”

As the nation’s second-largest textbook market, Texas has enormous leverage over publishers, who often “craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers.” Indeed, as The Washington Monthly has reported, “when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas.”


My dad worked for educational publishing all his life - this went on years ago as well. Texas has a state-wide book adoption (as opposed to most states which do it by county, city, etc). That is a HUGE contract. So publishers are willing to go along with this type of crap. The board of ed. is full of right wing zealots that hate anything they deem liberal. The fact that they can try to rewrite history or choose what the children can learn is disgusting and I wish one of the publishing companies would stand up to them. But, as we all know, $$ talks.

[hissinglight433]

I keep wondering when the republicans will trounce Jefferson -- they have already trounced Hamilton for wrecking the constitution. Jefferson was the one who didn't even believe in the document and thought that no generation should control another. He was a revolutionist for pure freedom