In a vote last week, the Texas Board of Education approved a Social Studies curriculum rewritten to emphasize conservative ideology and whitewash topics that don’t align with board members’ beliefs.  The curriculum, which is due to receive final approval in May, was changed to emphasize the Board’s religious and political objectives by, for instance, adding flattering details about disgraced conservative Senator Joseph McCarthy, increasing focus on violent fringe members of the peaceful civil rights coalition, and even downplaying the importance of Thomas Jefferson due to his insufficiently orthodox religious beliefs

People For the American Way President Michael B. Keegan issued the following statement:

“By rewriting this curriculum in such an Orwellian fashion, the Texas Board of Education has embarrassed themselves and their state.  A majority of the Board members have made it clear that they have little interest in providing Texas students with a first rate education.  Instead, they’d rather use educational curriculum as an opportunity to dishonestly push their ideological agenda to children.  Whether we can ascribe their moves to arrogance, malice or sheer ignorance is immaterial—they’re harming the students they were elected to serve, and that’s unacceptable.

“Parents in Texas and around the country should be extremely concerned about what this means for their children’s education.  Citizens of every state should make sure their representatives know that they want real history—not right-wing revisionist history—in their Social Studies classrooms.”

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