Diana Gomez, left, and Garrett Mize, along with other University of Texas students, rally before a State Board of Education meeting in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday, March 10, 2010. A group of 40 students marched to the public hearing to ask the far-right, conservative faction of the state board to not inject their political agenda into the social studies and history curriculum.
(AP Photo/Jack Plunkett)
Written by April Castro, Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN, Texas A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.
Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a “constitutional republic,” rather than “democratic,” and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.
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Maybe the teachers could just assign Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the US to go along w/the official text. The differences could make for good classroom discussions.