I'm really starting to believe that Texas has nothing better to do than to change around its schools' curriculum. The Board of Education is now trying to figure out which political figures they should include in Texas history standards and textbooks. Because the state produces many of the nation's textbooks, the decisions made by the Board of Ed will impact other states, as well.

As the board decides what will be taught in history classes for the next ten years, special interest groups and experts have been weighing in--everyone from the NAACP to Rev. Peter Marshall, a so-called "expert" who produced a book called "The Light and the Glory for Children: Discovering God's Plan for America from Christopher Columbus to George Washington."

The board has been discussing some crazy stuff--they've been debating whether or not to remove Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall from a list of "model citizens" and add them instead to a list of "those who have contributed to society." I'm kind of disappointed this is what they're spending their time on.

Texas is also considering requiring students to "identify 'significant' conservatives of the 21st century," according to the Chicago Tribune. Republican David Barton, part of the board's advisory panel on the standards, claims that these changes counter the "liberals [who] overwhelmingly outnumber those who are publicly known as conservatives." Experts like Rev. Marshall are also pushing to have conservative groups such as Focus on the Family emphasized in Texas texts. Marshall actually added that he would be okay with including primarily liberal organizations such as Planned Parenthood "provided the students are made aware of Planned Parenthood's funding of abortion clinics."

I'm not exactly sure why the Board of Ed is trying to maintain a completely balanced representation of political parties in favor of just reporting important historical concepts. It's going to much more important for the students' knowledge of history to be able to relate important periods and topics in history--such as the civil rights movement--than to be able to tell me who Rush Limbaugh is.

Furthermore, I can't exactly understand why students need to know about Planned Parenthood or Focus on the Family at all in history class. In the grand scheme of things, they have really not impacted America's history.

Nevertheless, Texas, can we get it together and try to actually encourage history in the history textbooks?

If you're interested, this is the schedule the board is taking for the standards revision, courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

--This Week: Discussion by the board, with expert reviewer and some public comment.
--November: Board discusses revised recommendations from the curriculum writing teams.
--January '10: First vote by board on new standards, preceded by public hearing.
--February '10: Revised standards posted online, open for public comment.
--March '10: Final vote by board on new standards Revised standards posted online, open for public comment.
--Fall '11: New standards implemented in Texas public schools
--Fall '12: Board adopts new textbooks
--Fall '13: Texan high schoolers -- and potentially their peers around the country -- use the new textbooks
And here's a set of videos on the crazy things being discussed in the meetings.