The Texas Curriculum

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Razib, there are, of course, idiocies in the changes in the Texas curriculum (as described in that New York Times piece), not least in choosing Thomas Aquinas over Thomas Jefferson as an influence on the revolutions of the late 18th century, but I was also struck by how sensible at least some of the changes (opposed by all the Democrats, it seems) appeared to be. Including von Hayek and Friedman as economists to be studied alongside the “usual” (the adjective comes from the New York Times report) list of Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes and nutty (not the New York Times’ adjective) Karl Marx seems very reasonable. Throwing in some history of the Venona papers in the context of a discussion of Joe McCarthy is not entirely stupid either….

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8 Responses to The Texas Curriculum

  1. David Hume says:
    March 13, 2010 at 11:17 pm

    andrew, i think that’s fair. history is generally normative anyhow. at least at the high school level.

  2. Susan says:
    March 14, 2010 at 8:17 am

    The Texas state board of education has approved a proposal for a Bible course to be taught in public high schools. It would be an elective, from what I gather.

  3. Pat Shuff says:
    March 14, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    I perused my kids grade school texts, particularly the sections covering the decades after I’d come of age and paid somewhat attention as things came and went. It was pretty obvious where the authors were coming from and if unconstrained and allowed to say what they _really_ think where they would stand on the spectrum. They don’t and never would consider voting Republican and it transparently showed, whichever kids’ text, whatever grade level. I haven’t voted for anyone claiming affiliation with either of those parties going on decades, just the measures.
    It doesn’t seemed to have harmed our adult kids’ rather apolitical sensibilities in any noticeable way.
    They’re much like me/us only worse, to paraphrase Reader’s Digest, ridicule is the best medicine.

  4. Pingback: “The Texas Board of Education wants dumber kids.” and related posts | Socialinks

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  7. 8 says:
    March 18, 2010 at 12:44 pm

    Maybe when the Texass educators get to McCarthyism, bring in Annie Coulter and the neo-cons who don’t object to it, AND refer back to like the Constitution, for a lesson in Conservative Hypocrisy 101.

    The harm done by the conservative tweaking of the Tex. curriculum outweighs any good–that’s fairly obvious. And where do the good ol boy pedagogues stop? Why not say…RE Lee? Jeff. Davis? The KKK? Nazis! Jr. go upstarirs and read yr Mein Kampf

  8. Lesacre says:
    March 19, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    Andrew Stuttaford and Razib,

    I find it odd that you don’t discuss liberal Moral-theology more. Discussing Christian Fundamentalism is like shooting fish in a barrel. I started out on this, but since I have my own moral-theological commitments (ethnically speaking), I think this should best be left to someone else. http://lesacred.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/cultural-liberal-morality-a-falsifiable-hypothesis/

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