As the gist of this story correctly suggests, it is not elitist to think and understands that those untrained in specialty fields have no business thinking they are qualified to do the work. In Texas Board of Education, experts think that they are qualified to have the nation`s top book publishers print new books adopting religious standards included in them to teach and educate our children.
Obviously if these experts are Republicans or political conservatives or a Christian evangelical governing body in Texas, as we have seen for so long, these experts most surely espouse a political faith belief ideology that actually frames their own stupidity.
Take these self-proof appointed educational experts shown in this image below. In my view, they appear to represent experts who believe they know more about history, the natural sciences and other forms of scholarship than do those who spent decades earning advanced degrees, conducting original research and consulting with fellow experts on the topics of education in our schools.
Every thing in Texas is bigger, even the stupidity
Somehow America has reached a twisted point in its history in which people educated in specialty fields at our most prestigious schools are routinely derided by the uninformed as fools or traitors trying to bring down the country. That is the political conservative Republican way.
The latest "experts don`t know as much as me" nonsense has emerged in one of the worst places possible: high school textbooks. Over the past few months as we have learned, a new set of books has emerged from the nation’s publishers, the first since the State Board of Education in Texas, driven by political conservatives and Christian evangelicals, adopted standards in 2010 for what should be included in them. And the decisions by Texans don’t just inflict this foolishness on Texas kids; because the state is such a huge purchaser of school textbooks, publishers often opt to print whatever the Lone Star State wants for students all over the country.
It is no secret that what the State Board of Education in Texas has been working on to inject conservative and Christian evangelical beliefs on school children and up the ladder in education is nothing more than an indoctrination of the mind into a set religion. ALEC, as you read this is meeting in Texas right now with a “shameless” agenda to privatize public education.
ALEC is a national organization “composed of legislators, businesses and foundations” with great influence and connections to extreme think tanks and supported by funding from corporations that are seeking to drive a public policy agenda based on privatization and profit. Think of the ALEC driven vouchers programs across the nation today. For almost 20 years, a top priority item for ALEC has been the privatization of public schools through school vouchers. Like many ALEC efforts, this one was first implemented in Wisconsin and Governor Scott Walker continues to expand ala ALEC who has dozens of bills related to this topic, along with books and analysis.
Newsweek, author Kurt Eichenwald to whom I give credit for this story writes that based on Texas approved standards under the auspices of Perfection Learning’s Textbook on American History, the books are out, and, unsurprisingly, history and knowledge have been tossed aside in favor of politics, propaganda and faith. The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, a group organized to strengthen public schools and counter the influence of the Christian right in education, asked real experts—people with doctorates who teach these topics at university levels—to review the textbooks, and their opinions were scathing.
To give you just one example of the stupidity into the Texas based standards set out for teaching our children about the History and knowledge in education by these experts, I give you this:
Did you know Moses played a role in the writing of the U.S. Constitution?
I didn’t.
Apparently neither did the Founding Fathers, since he’s not mentioned in the Federalist Papers or any other relevant document. But students reading Perfection Learning’s new textbook on American history will think Moses was right up there with John Locke and Charles de Montesquieu in influencing Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and their brethren.
What role did Moses supposedly play? The textbook claims he contributed the concept that “a nation needs a written code of behavior.” Forget the biblical ignorance shown in suggesting Moses provided the code for a “nation” rather than for the Jewish people, who had no nation (failing to reach the Promised Land was kind of key to the Book of Deuteronomy). Forget the legal ignorance in suggesting the Constitution had anything to do with a “code of behavior” rather than establishing democratic government and the rights guaranteed to citizens. Forget the historical ignorance in suggesting that the first laws came from Moses when the sixth Amorite king of Babylon established one of the first written set of laws, known as Hammurabi's Code, hundreds of years earlier.
Saying Moses played a role in the writing of the Constitution because he showed the benefits of having rules is about on par with saying that the caveman who invented the wheel helped design the first automobile. This claptrap was nothing more than a vehicle to sneak religious training into history classes. When it comes to textbook cases of bad-textbookings in Texas, "real experts" are not far behind.
That’s why the book says the following, grammatical errors and all:
“During their years of wandering in the desert of the Sinai, Moses handed down God’s Ten Commandments to the Hebrews. These commandments now form the bedrock on which the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian codes of behavior are based. The full account of Moses’ life can be found in the Bible’s book of Exodus.” Yes, a history book is teaching as fact that God wrote the Ten Commandments and gave them to Moses—something that some religious academics who have dedicated their lives to the study of the Bible believe is not a true story. This is not history. It is not even biblical scholarship. It is puerile, gee-whiz religiosity propounded by biblical illiterates to indoctrinate young people while undermining any chance they have of learning how to think like historians.
I wholeheartedly agree with language in this article in that somehow America has reached a stage where real estate brokers, dental hygienists, restaurant franchise owners, college dropouts turned radio talk-show hosts, journalists, politicians and assorted other flibbertigibbets all connected to FoxNews stations believe they know more about history, the natural sciences and other forms of scholarship than do those who spent decades earning advanced degrees, conducting original research and consulting with fellow experts on those topics.
Some experts seem hopeful that this descent into delusion will be undone before too much damage is done. Dr. Edward Countryman, the Distinguished University Professor in History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and one of the reviewers for the Texas Freedom Network, says, “Eventually, those [Texas Board of Education] standards will be left behind. One can only hope that in the next round of drafting, good historical sense rather than ideology will prevail.... [T]he subject is far too important for ideology to trump all else.”
In addition to this story telling of experts who seem to profess the teachings of religious education in our Texas schools is the new way to go, it is further unsurprisingly that each year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas releases a report of the most banned or challenged books in Texas school districts.
These draconian Texas rules on banning books are not even practiced in some of the most dangerous and maximum state prisons, but with its political ideology framed by ALEC schools are being told what to, and what not to, read. Even though some of the banned books have been restored back on the shelves of libraries and schools, you can read about the books that are currently banned Here.
The next time you read "an expert" giving his/her take on a particular topic, think of the experts that the state of Texas has on Texas Board of Education. Not all experts are ummm, experts.
Oh my, what has become of my beloved Texas??? Do not teach the children to be, "stupid is as stupid does".
P.S. I have corrected the link above to show the books banned in Texas...Sorry