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March 13, 2010
Pro-American School Curriculum Horrifies New York (Waste of) Times
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at March 13, 2010 10:50 AM
Last week, the Texas Board of Education approved a social studies curriculum that takes the daring position that America is a country to be proud of. It will even say some nice things about capitalism.
To the New York Waste of Times, however, this is all a fiendish right-wing Repubican to make youth more patriotic.
Rarely in recent history has a group of conservative board members left such a mark on a social studies curriculum.
"They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world."
Silly patriots! Only Howard Zinn is allowed to rewrite history along ideological lines!
Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.
How dare someone put something accurate in a history text! Oh, the outrage! And isn't it funny how the Waste of Times sneers that the board member is "a dentist by training." The Waste of Times wasn't upset when Rajendra Kumar Pachauri -- a railroad engineer by training -- was put in charge of the UN's Climate Change panel.
I bet your typical Texas Dentist has more common sense than a Harvard-educated Chicago community organizer, any day.
The Waste of Times was also angry that:
Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include "how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government."
In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes.
It is a telling difference between left and right that they get upset when we want history taught with a patriotic perspective. We get upset when they want deviant sex practices taught to middle-schoolers.
