The Texas social studies textbook guidelines are back in the news. The latest proposal from beyond-the-bend education board member Don McLeroy could have been written by Pete Peterson, would-be entitlement killer, himself.
Here's what Mr. McLeroy wants all Texas schoolchildren to "learn":
The new amendment (.pdf), which is expected to get a vote on Thursday, would require high school history students to "discuss alternatives regarding long term entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, given the decreasing worker to retiree ratio" and also "evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U. S. sovereignty."
The Republicans are still fighting the New Deal, even though few of them are quite as blatant as Mr. McLeroy. The Pete Peterson and deficit commission crowd will try to be a little more subtle in their efforts to convince America's policy-makers that the only way the nation will survive will be to gut Social Security and Medicare. Maybe McLeroy figures that the next generation of politicians will have a leg up on that effort if youngsters now are indoctrinated.
There's a ray of hope in combating the Texas textbook problem. Because Texas is so huge, it has a tremendous market-share on textbooks, and thus outsized influence in them. Producing textbooks is an expensive undertaking for publishers, and the best way to be competitive is to tailor the books to the standards of the biggest states.
So when the California legislature takes up an effort to combat Texas's influence, it's important. The proposed legislation in California would require the California Board of Education to review all public school textbooks for any of the Texas content, and report those findings, presumably to then allow the state to refuse the material. It's a good idea that other large states should consider trying to implement.