http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=3643

You read, you decide!

I agree but when you got a vast amount of history and only so much space in the book, triage has to
be done though the idea of cutting Jefferson for Phyllis Schlafly really sets wrong with me. Maybe it’ll
be a signal to other states to use their own standards when buying text books.

By the way, Fidoohki, I do believe it is essential part of education to cover such topics as the Civil War from both perspectives. Some part of the divide in our nation goes back to that era, and we don’t understand ourselves or our nation if we don’t understand the root of some of our differences. Similarly, McCarthyism must be taught and be understood. President Eisenhower felt that our nation was frozen by McCarthyism at a time when we ought to be exploding technologically. We could go on and on, and education will never be completely objective, but the more to which we expose our children, the better able they are to understand themselves, our nation and our role in the world.

I have to say, cutting back on Jefferson bothers me tremendously. He is a fascinating figure to begin with, but more importanly, how does one understand our democracy, our Republic, without understanding Jefferson (and, I would add Jackson)? I won’t insult you by using Jackson’s first name in my question to you, but for Writer and his sort, Andrew Jackson, not Jessee Jackson.

It doesn’t seem as bad after you explained it. Still uncomfortable though but since I’ve always
believed the best way to combat fear and hate is through knowledge and understanding, studying
both Joseph McCarthy and the Civil war from another perspective seems to fit right in. I wonder if
she got it wrong on the National Rifle association though? While I can see it, it’s Texas after all,
there was also an NRA = National Recovery Administration that was FDR’s main new deal
programs. Maybe she saw NRA and decided it meant the modern one?

Though, if you were to ask me, I’d hope that something which might come out of this whole is hoo-haw would be a discussion on how textbooks are marketed.

Texas is the biggest, so a lot of folks claim that their curriculum standards would become somewhat national, while I don’t know who has the smallest volume, but maybe they should ask “why bother?”.

It seems to me that in this age, when I can order a single printing of a book via Lulu or a digital download from Amazon that we might consider regulating Houghton-Mifflin into building a database of textbook content and then plugging/playing the appropriate paragraphs or chapters into each state’s edition.

I mean, it’s not like the textbook manufacturers don’t have guaranteed sales to a captive market…