Is there a constitutional mechanism for granting Texas its independence? We could give them Oklahoma too and call the new county Klansylvania.

And since the Texas Board of Education determines the national education standards through the wonderful free market, all our kids can learn of the singular patriotism of Newt Gingrich.

Joy.

It's worth mentioning once again that because Texas is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks and publishers don't want to take on the expense of producing different versions, Texas's idiotic choices have the effect of dumbing down students across the country.

Good plan - and Limbaugh & Gingrich can be declared the Founding Fathers...

Not to mention the chapter on the wise governance of George W. Bush. Will there be a forward by Bill Kristol?
It's fair to conclude that the goal of this exercise is to keep Texans ignorant enough to continue to elect Republicans.

As conservatives see it, the problem is that their radical indoctrination program did not work on a couple of generations due to the influence of hippies. The new plan calls for cradle to grave "education" that includes 12 years of creationist bunk and Republican highlighted "history" followed by 24 hours a day of Fox News and Limbaugh. Then secession will be a relatively simple maneuver.

Quote of the day:

Michael Moore: "I guess if I were going to live outside the U.S., I would live in Texas."

Actually SteveT, Texastan is coming along nicely.

Another 5 years and "homos" and adulterers will be put to death...
stoned to death. Children will be turning in their parents for re-education, and ever'body in Texastan will be wearing uniforms and carryin' heat.

It's worth mentioning once again that because Texas is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks and publishers don't want to take on the expense of producing different versions, Texas's idiotic choices have the effect of dumbing down students across the country.
That's a legitimate concern. On the other hand, the publishers will also have to weigh the fact that they'll sell none of these books to California - or any other state outside of the South.

Children already are inundated with liberal messages from the MSM and Hollywood. Texas is just trying to create balance.

Rather nice argument for home schooling.

Officials did, however, want to add instruction on the "motivational role the Bible and the Christian faith played in the settling of the original colonies."

Excellent idea

Ah shit, I guess in Texas you don't really need the Enlightenment! -Kevo

The Dear Leader, Kim Jung Perry requires our total loyalty! Mmmmm! Tumbleweeds.

This is how a great nation becomes a humiliated abject failure.

Texas now REQUIRES that all high schools provide a class on the Bible. It is to be taken as an elective (for now....) However, the legislature did not budget any funds for the program and there is quite a bit of controversy surrounding the class because there are strict rules governing the content.

Well, in 20 years, when Texas is the embodiment of the film Idiocracy and the rest of us continue to value facts and knowledge, the average Texas high school grad can look forward to a fine career in unskilled labor. I personally look forward to Governor Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho of Texas.

I trust that the sordid tale of Gingrich's marital history, and his departure from Congress will be included, as a lesson that power corrupts, and that mighty men can be laid low by their own hubris, dishonesty and vanity?

I think there is plenty of pedagogical merit in studying the story of a serial adulterer who left a sick wife in her moment of need, and who was the first House Speaker in 208 years to be reprimanded and fined for his ethical misbehavior. Perhaps they could also be taught that smart, well-spoken and charismatic men can be deeply immoral liars, and should not be trusted.

Teaching students about Newt is a fine idea, but only if they teach them ALL about Newt. Sadly, it doesn't sound like that's the plan.

This reminds me of the debate I had with the fellow who asserted that the Constitution should be interpreted as embodying the religious beliefs held by the Framers.

I replied that that would be interesting considering that they were Freemasons.

We would be much better off if education provided the critical tools necessary to engage in lifelong learning. Math, foreign languages, some science, something involving research. History, as such, actually could be dispensed with. If presented, it should focus on the works of great historians such as Tacitus, Gibbon, etc..

Rather nice argument for home schooling.

Everything goes in circles. When I first moved to North Carolina thirty years ago I asked a neighbor why his son went to the local Christian school when the town was pretty well known for its good schools and he was more-or-less notoriously irreligious himself.

The answer -- in the public schools they were teaching that damn "Kennedy history".

It's always interesting to re-discover who actually won the Civil War.

And, these people think America's decline is somehow related to a nonexistent plot a) to forcefully prevent them from loving Jesus and b) to steal all their guns? Yeah, that's it! Can't have anything to do with starving schools of tax funding, replacing science and fact with religious myths, and rewriting history such that the Imperial Wizard of the KKK is an American hero and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is the spawn of Satan. Yeah, that can't be the reason our kids are as ignorant as Tom DeLay and can't comprehend Algebra and Calculus.

Remember when the big selling point for GWB in the 2000 election was all the great things he had done with Texas education? Then they found out that the test results had been rigged and it was still one of the shittiest state from an educational standpoint.

My kids are enrolled in specialized programs within the public school system and most of them don't rely too much on standard textbooks, choosing instead to compile their own materials off the internet.

Doesn't matter, really, what's in the standards. Teachers can go rogue.

Back in -- let's see, I was in seventh grade, so it was, uh, 1975 ... back in 1975, I was a seventh-grader at the atrocious Monnig Middle School in Fort Worth. My social studies teacher was a John Bircher who spent our classroom hours haranguing and propagandizing us about the virtues of free-market capitalism and the evils of communism and liberalism.

When I say he was a John Bircher, I mean he was a John Bircher. I'm not exaggerating.

That was my seventh-grade social studies teacher in Texas in 1975. Back then, we didn't have today's standardized tests, so teachers could teach whatever the hell they wanted. Either the school administration didn't know or didn't care.

What did I and some of my classmates learn? That teachers and other authority figures aren't always trustworthy, and that some conservatives are big fat liars. Today's kids learn the same things. They see right through the propagandizing -- well, some kids do.

Because of standardized testing, today's teachers don't have as much room to go rogue. But they still can downplay or counteract the right-wing propaganda in textbooks.

I'm thinking we need to re-popularize Pink Floyd and "The Wall".

"We don't need no education.
We don't need no thought control.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall."

Ah gradwatd off texas hah skul sistm.
Ah think this sistmz grate. Ah want to honr limbaw, dalai, and ginrich. Thes r the tru patrits. Not no liibruls
Ah dont think no nigs, spics, jews, kikes, or libruls shud be onored. Wat did they due. Hoo is this turgod marshll?
Nun of them fondling fathers was a librul. ok jefferson was a fondling father but he was fondling his slaves which is ok cause utherwiz y hav slaves if you kant fondl them.
Ah am an esampl of how edukated you can bee by koming out of the texus sistm. If u think im dum ah got a 357 magnm that can spell 357 can u? The furst letter is baang!

I can see the ACLU lawyers lining up at the federal court by Labor Day.

Unfortunately I don't see the TX school board drawing any object lessons from, say, the Dover PA school board case.

Apparently the board's lawyers learned everything they know from the likes of Judge Gonzalez, who appears to have told them that precedent and decisions in other jurisdictions don't matter.

It is a real shame that three of the greatest Texans ever - Barbara Jordan, Molly Ivins and Anne Richards - aren't around anymore to make fools of these fools. On the other hand, they do such a great job on their own...

Bleep 'em! Let them secede.

Thlayli, I do agree that it's important to teach why the Puritans came to New England. It's even more important make sure students understand how centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants in England shaped the history of the Colonies and later of the writing of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers decided on separation of Church and State largely to spare the new country from the horrors that the mother country had endured. But the irony is that those topics have been left out of history classes for the last few decades mainly because high schools are sick of having fundamentalist conservatives showing up at their doorsteps with pitchforks every time religion is mentioned in school, if the mention doesn't conform precisely to their concepts of how religion should be taught. It's easier to avoid the subject altogether than to deal with the furious complaints that arrive when you try to teach about it in an intellectually honest manner.

T-Rex,
You're right.
How about we create a "Jesusland" in the southern part of the country. Let them secede. Let them create their little theocrocy.
Only two things:
No financial help from the rest of the US rational world.
And, we won't accept any student's from your Bible-thumping schools. Not one! We want future members of MENSA, not DENSA!
So, go ahead with your plan. When your idiot students can't tell the difference between Susan B. Anthony and Sarah Palin, or a proton and a neutron, don't come crawling to us for help. Pray to Jesus to save your stupid, ignorant, racist asses. 'Cause we sure as Hell won't.

Texas is a dick.

Huh. What these people are talking about is a madrassa, essentially. A Republican madrassa in every Texas town.

I don't think I'd have a problem with children studying Newt Gingrich - I mean, how much more American-sounding can you get, right - just as long as the textbook portrays him as the partisan tool he really is, hyopcritical to a fault, and to accurate forecasting of momentous world events what pedophiles are to summer camp.

What do you suppose are the chances of that?

who reads texas textbooks?

tom delay...george w. bush?

um..wait a minute...