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March 10, 2010

Texas ed board set to take 1st vote since primary

Associated Press Associated Press

AUSTIN — The politically shifting State Board of Education opened discussion of new social studies curriculum standards Wednesday with a plea that the Christian “heritage from which our nation was founded” be reflected in the new standards.

The board — long led by social conservatives who have advocated for ideas such as teaching Texas children more about the weaknesses of evolutionary theory — has worked on, and squabbled about, the social studies standards for months. The board’s ultimate decisions affect the textbook content around the country because Texas is one of publishers’ biggest clients.

Debate on the standards has been marked by ideological squabbles over religion and attempts to reflect liberal or conservative viewpoints.

“We fear that state board members have been pressured ... to wash the (curriculum standards) clean of any references to Judeo-Christian faiths while promoting references to other religions,” said state Rep. Wayne Christian, a Republican reading a letter to the board from several state legislators who are members of the Texas Conservative Coalition.

“We respectfully request that the (curriculum) continue to include references to the Judeo-Christian heritage from which our nation was founded,” he read.

Even before the board began to address the social studies, history and economics curriculum, news cameras from national media outlets, activists and protesters filled the small auditorium.

The board is expected to take a preliminary vote this week, with final adoption in May.

A three-day meeting is the first since voters in last week’s Republican primary handed defeats to two veteran conservatives, including former board chairman Don McLeroy, who lost to a moderate GOP lobbyist. Two others — a conservative Republican and a moderate Democrat — did not seek re-election. All four terms end in January.

McLeroy, a 10-year board veteran, has been one of the most polarizing members. The devout Christian conservative has been an adamant and prolific amendment writer on several issues, including that the Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers are important to studying American history.

“I think there’ll be lots of amendments ... a lot of media attention, and it’s important,” McLeroy said of the meeting, adding that his lame-duck status won’t affect his approach. “Our country is divided on how we see things and these things really come into sharp focus, especially with history and how you present it to your children.”

Aside from the Founding Fathers’ beliefs, debate could flare over issues such as border security and how much children will study the impact of government regulation on the free enterprise system.

Amendments were debated late into the night during the board’s last meeting, in January, when members smoothed over early clashes about how much prominence to give civil rights leader Cesar Chavez and whether Christmas should be in the curriculum.

In Texas alone, the board’s decisions will set guideposts for teaching history and social studies to some 4.8 million K-12 students during the next 10 years.

In other testimony Wednesday, Hispanic activists asked that more Latinos be in the standards, particularly early Texas leaders. Conservatives, including McLeroy, have complained of too much emphasis was being given to historic figures’ race and ethnicity.

A group of University of Texas students marched toward the meeting Wednesday to ask “the far-right, conservative faction of the state board to not inject their political agenda into the social studies and history curriculum,” said Garrett Mize, a senior government major.

“There seems to be a misinformed view of religion in American history, that America is somehow founded on Christianity,” Mize said. “We just ask that things be historically accurate.”

 

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