Friday, April 9, 2010
By Ari Hamilton
Entertainment Editor
Education standards across America have a tendency to be everything but standard. This was most clearly shown recently, when the Texas Board of Education voted to substantially alter the social studies curriculum, blatantly altering what should be a consistent subject.
Texas’ education standards effectively dictate what textbook companies will include in their books, because the state is one of the largest single buyers of textbooks in the nation.
The school board, instead of providing the fullest breadth of information possible, has let a conservative political viewpoint limit and alter the curriculum.
This new perspective includes such alterations as questioning the legitimacy of Darwin’s theory of evolution, portraying the Confederacy in a more positive light and emphasizing the Republican party’s influence in the passage of civil rights while downplaying the role of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
The new standards will also justify Japanese internment based on the fact that Italians and Germans were also seized, even though they were not persecuted on a scale or degree remotely similar to that of Japanese Americans in California.
Since only Texan students will be taught by these severly altered standards, they are effectively at a disadvantage on nationwide history exams such as the Advanced Placement tests and SAT Subject tests.
The woman who proposed the amendments, Cynthia Dunbar, describes herself as an “outspoken conservative” on her website and has vowed to “protect the textbook review process and fight for parental control over hidden socialistic, humanistic agendas.”
Dunbar and the board have let political persuasions influence them in putting Texas students at a national disadvantage.
It isn’t only Texas that can suffer from these changes to education; these standards could potentially have an effect on all American students.
The capacity for the board to make such drastic changes on the basis of personal opinion and politics could create a worrisome precedent that needs to be avoided, or, better yet, denied.
Just as troublesome, however, is the fact that the Board of Education includes members who have neither a background in social studies nor education. Yet, the board has the legal authority to alter standards utilized across the country and bastardize them into a political tool.
The United States Department of Education has considerable influence over federal aid for the nation’s school districts, an influence which is rarely used to effect any change in educational standards. However, if highway funds can be used to enforce a drinking age, education money could be wielded to stipulate standards.
Education is a serious influence on a child’s development and should not be manipulated for political ends.
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