{"id":8138,"date":"2018-03-09T18:35:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8138"},"modified":"2018-03-09T18:35:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:35:36","slug":"study-gop-led-education-board-distorts-tx-history-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8138","title":{"rendered":"Study: GOP-Led Education Board Distorts TX History Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"This<\/a>

This statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in a Dallas park is part of the state\u2019s history. But a new report claims there are numerous errors in the history books used in Texas public schools. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0A new report claims state education officials are favoring politics over facts in teaching Texas history.<\/p>\n

A Texas Freedom Network Education Fund study<\/a>\u00a0charges the Republican-controlled State Board of Education has altered significant parts of history texts, distorting passages on slavery and the Civil War, civil rights, religion and other topics, to conform to its members\u2019 conservative viewpoint.<\/p>\n

Edward Countryman, a Southern Methodist University history professor and a consultant for the study, says current events make it especially important to present the facts without bias.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation across the country is a mess,\u201d he says. \u201cI think it\u2019s really important in the present situation \u2013 with Charlottesville and all the rest of it \u2013 that people actually understand the realities of this country\u2019s history, and I\u2019ll start with the Civil War.\u201d<\/p>\n

Countryman says the current curriculum, approved by the board in 2010, states that slavery was not a major factor in Texas joining the Confederacy in 1861.<\/p>\n

No current board members responded to requests for comment, but Republican board member Pat Hardy was quoted in news reports in 2010 calling slavery \u201ca side issue,\u201d and saying, \u201cThe real reason for secession was states\u2019 rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Countryman disagrees, saying history books of more than 100 years clearly show it was slavery that divided the country.<\/p>\n

Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, says the board is scheduled to revise the curriculum this year. Her group has put together a panel of academics and historians to propose corrections to what she calls \u201cmultiple errors\u201d in the text.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are urging the Texas State Board of Education to take this opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past, to give our kids facts and scholarship in their history curriculum, and to put our kids ahead of their political ideology,\u201d says Miller.<\/p>\n

Countryman, who has followed the board for years, says conservatives hold a 2-to-1 advantage over Democrats on the panel and can therefore dictate policy \u2013 but it wasn\u2019t always that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a different makeup of the board now\u201d he says. \u201cIt was always a tradition that people would talk across party lines about good history, rather than yell at one another or come up with one harebrained idea after another.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board will hold public hearings for the revised standards later this year, with a final vote in November. About half the board members also are up for re-election this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0A new report claims state education officials are favoring politics over facts in teaching Texas history. A Texas Freedom Network Education Fund study\u00a0charges the Republican-controlled State Board of Education has altered significant parts of history texts, distorting passages on slavery and the Civil War, civil rights, religion and other topics, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8142,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8138\/revisions\/8142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}