Soon we will be bombarded with all kinds of education stories……soon we will be in the midst of “Education Nation”……we will hear all about the charter school that is making a difference but NOTHING about the ones that are screwing the system or are just flat out failures…..we will listen to how well these programs are working and NOTHING about just how awful the education system really is……we will hear a lot….most of which is pure MANURE!

An education was designed primarily to instruct the student on his/her society, government and to prepare them to move on to college with instruction in science, math, language and other necessary courses so that they can make informed decisions in their future.  But now all that is changing and not for the better…..

Let me back up a bit….I know there are some things in our history that are not to attractive….like when Jefferson tucked tail and ran from the British when he was governor or the ugliness of the civil rights era or that Washington started the French & Indian War by ambushing and killing a diplomatic mission …..well you pick one or so.  But those are things we need to know so that we do not let them ever happen again and it has made us a stronger people.  But it seems that states are not too thrilled with true history and want to re-write it to their liking and then to force feed it to our children…..

The board goes on to remove the word “slavery” from the standards, replacing it with the more benign-seeming “Atlantic triangular trade.” They insist on calling the United States a “constitutional republic” rather than a “democracy” – largely because they want students to think of their country as Republican, not Democratic. So convinced are they of the timeless superiority of American/Republican values that one of them introduces a standard asking students to “explain three pro-free-market factors contributing to European technological progress during the rise and decline of the medieval system.”

Historical figures of suspect religious views (like Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin) or political tendency (like union organizer Dolores Huerta) are ruthlessly demoted or purged altogether from the study program. Meanwhile, the board majority makes room for an eclectic array of ancillary figures from the revolutionary period, such as Charles Carroll and Jonathan Trumbull. What these marginal figures have in common, other than being dusted off from high shelves and promoted by the board, is the fact that they were loud defenders of orthodox Christianity.

Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the “significant contributions” of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war.

The new curriculum asserts that “the right to keep and bear arms” is an important element of a democratic society. Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.

As a political historian I find it disgusting to write history to your liking……and then there are people that think like this…….

“We are fighting for our children’s education and our nation’s future,” Dunbar said. “In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections.”

NO!  You have an obligation to teach the TRUTH……no matter how it smells.  STOP using children as a political prop……ever noticed that children like vets are only important as a prop to get one’s way?

I know no one wants to hear this…..but what they are doing is….INDOCTRINATION!  This from my previous post, Propaganda 2.0………

Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin’s mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they’ll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.

This is what is happening……my grandfather always said, ‘the truth is open to debate, but the facts speak for themselves’………..

Most Americans agree that education is one of the most important issues of our time…….but do they mean it?

It is primary and secondary schools  that students learn their core values and attitudes that will determine their behavior once their schooling is finished.  And some of these efforts are directly aimed at the ideology that some want to see…not what is best.

Education will continue to decline until there is found a system that is more equitable to all…and when students are taught to think …not memorize and that cannot happen as long as profit is the big motivator.