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Thursday, October 09, 2014

SMU Scholar: New Texas Textbooks Suggest ‘Wrong-Headed Idea That the United States Was Founded on Biblical Law’

Consider signing this petition for accurate textbooks. This reminds me of former Texas the first female Governor of Texas Ma Ferguson (1925) who was perhaps most famous for saying:

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, then it's good enough for Texas."

You  gotta’ love it! :-)

-Angela

SMU Scholar: New Texas Textbooks Suggest ‘Wrong-Headed Idea That the United States Was Founded on Biblical Law’


When the State Board of Education held its first public hearing on proposed new social studies textbooks for Texas public schools, scholars from across the state (and from outside Texas) expressed their concerns about serious problems in those texts. Kathleen Wellman, Dedman Family Distinguished Professor of History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, was particularly concerned with how the textbooks exaggerate Judeo-Christian influences on the American founding.
That exaggeration goes so far, Wellman notes in the video clip of her September testimony above, that the textbooks essentially make Moses “the Founding Father.” The impression students will get? Wellman, with only a hint of sarcasm:
“I think they’ll believe that Moses was the first American.”
Religious-righters on the State Board of Education in Texas hoped for this kind of textbook content when they passed deeply flawed and politicized new curriculum standards for social studies classes in 2010. The new textbooks must cover those standards.

You can read more about the problems in the proposed new social studies textbooks for Texas public schools here: tfn.org/history. While you’re there, sign the petition calling for textbooks based on honest, accurate history, not the ideological beliefs of politicians on the State Board of Education. The State Board of Education is set to vote in November on which textbooks to approve.

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