Hispanic group rips Texas education board

[marmar]

via the Dallas Morning News:



Hispanic group rips Texas education board
04/01/2010

By JAY ROOT / Associated Press


Hispanic lawmakers and academic experts blasted the Texas State Board of Education for minimizing the contributions of minorities as it attempts to rewrite guidelines for the teaching of history and social studies.

Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fisher of San Antonio, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus said Wednesday the board had become a "national circus" amid fiery debates over proposed new curriculum standards that will dictate what students in Texas learn over the next decade. Martinez Fisher cited revisions he said downplayed the importance of labor leader Cesar Chavez, for example.

He also complained that board members, at their most recent meeting on the curriculum standards, relied on information culled from the Internet while ignoring historians as they drafted amendments to the guidelines, which are supposed to be finalized in May.

"Nationally renowned experts are being replaced by Wikipedia and things you can find on the Internet, and who can Google the fastest at a board of education hearing," he said. "It has now become a national circus."

Republican Don McLeroy, the backbone of the conservative voting bloc, acknowledged fellow board members used Internet search engines to look up information on historical figures that they didn't know much about. But he said members didn't rely on the searches in the formal curriculum rewriting process. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D9EPU4LO3.html

[LiberalFighter]

1. Only those in the education field should be on those boards.

[orion007]

4. That doesn't guarantee anything.

Those in the education field also have their beliefs and prejudices when making decisions.

[11 Bravo]

5. It beats the shit out of what's currently in place in Texas.

[orion007]

6. Then there needs to be Hispanic educators and or historians on the board.

[etherealtruth]

7. Yeah ... like the biology teacher ...

... my eldest child had in Virginia .... re evolution: the teacher informed my son (and the class) that everything they needed to know was in the bible. yeah .... he should have a say .... NOT!

[11 Bravo]

8. I've been a Virginia public school teacher for 35+ years. If I EVER ...

said anything even remotely approaching what you allege your child's teacher said, I would have been reprimanded and quite possibly terminated. Perhaps Fairfax County is ahead of the curve, or perhaps ...

[etherealtruth]

9. Battlefield Middle School in Spotsylvania County in the late 1990's

Oddly, I still thought the Virginia Public Schools were the best I've encountered (overall). Perhaps it has changed .... that area was very heavily populated by fundamentalist Christians at the time I lived there .... not so much in our then brand new sub .... but, the surrounding area.

On edit: I wouldn't post the teacher's name on a public message board, but I will guarantee my (now 28 year old) son will remember it.

[SpiralHawk]

2. The return of the Texicans

and of course, the history of the region -- and the cultural contributions -- go back many thousands of years before the coming of the Conquistadors. Not that the present Texas board is at all interested in truth or reality --

[UTUSN]

3. K&R big #5 n/t