We Support Final Approval of Texas Social Studies Standards
ACTION STEPS: Click here for a version you can download and print.
? Email the SBOE your support for: (1) the social studies standards adopted in March and (2) your support for a final vote at the May 21st meeting, and (3) continue to have an elected SBOE. Send support emails [email protected] Also cc your email to [email protected] which is sent to SBOE members. These emails will be published publicly.
? Email Liberty Institute at [email protected] if you want to testify at the May 19th public hearing in Austin or help in other ways.
BACKGROUND:
? In March 2010, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) approved update Social Studies standards for K-12 public schools. The SBOE is scheduled to takes it final vote on social studies on May 21, 2010. Click here for link to complete details of social studies standards http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=3643. The SBOE has already held four public hearings on this issue. The work and review of this issue began over a year ago, that’s longer than the five months the Texas Legislature is in session.
? Efforts to remove Christmas, Neil Armstrong, Alexander Graham Bell, George Patton, Daniel Boone, the Liberty Bell and Albert Einstein were all rejected by the majority of the SBOE.
? Efforts to diminish religious heritage, Judeo-Christian impact on America, Independence Day, and Thomas Edison and force students to learn a flawed description of the First Amendment in regards to religion, were all rejected by the majority of the SBOE.
? Now, extreme liberal groups, liberal academia, the ACLU, and candidate Bill White want to delay the final vote on social studies until January 2011, after the November elections and one State Senator even wants to abolish the SBOE and take away your vote!!
? The ACLU and other left-wing have been working hard to distort the truth about the contents of the social studies standards, to try to discredit conservative SBOE members.
? The ACLU and others want the SBOE to ignore the voice of parents and common sense teachers and instead rely only a select group of professors, one of which wants to remove Neil Armstrong, Alexander Graham Bell, Columbus from two sections, and the Texas Rangers by specific name. This professor (Jesus F. de la Teja), though, wants to add the National Organization of Women (NOW) to the social studies standards.
? To help clear up public misrepresentations about the social studies standards, Liberty Institute has compiled a condensed list of approved social studies standards for study. Among those:
- Historical Figures: Neil Armstrong, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Columbus (voted back into standards, previously removed by unelected review committees (Columbus/Edison-partial).
- Tejano leaders: Juan N. Seguin, Lorenzo de Zavala, and Jose Antonio Navarro, others.
- Important Concepts: “American Exceptionalism”
- Contributions of Founding Fathers: John Hancock, John Jay, John Witherspoon, others
- Thomas Jefferson: contribution of his political philosophy (he’s covered in four different sections)
- Religious Heritage: impact of religion and Judeo-Christian legal tradition on America.
- Landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases: Brown v. Bd of Education, Sweat v. Painter, Hernandez v. Texas, Roe v. Wade, Tinker v. Des Moines, Miranda v. Arizona.
- Cultural Leaders: Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, James A. Baker III, Hillary Clinton, Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, Sam Walton, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., W.E. B. Dubois, Irma Rangel, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Estee Lauder, Harriet Tubman, Todd Beamer, Mary Kay Ash, Roy Benavidez, John “Danny” Olivas, Henry B. Gonzalez, Jonas Salk, Hector P. Garcia, Carmen Loma Garza, Vernon J. Baker, Michael Dell, George Washington Carver, Michael DeBakey… Groups: LULAC, Black Panthers, NAACP, NRA, Moral Majority, Heritage Foundation.
- BC/AD – Majority of SBOE voted to use correct date/calendar abbreviations for years. Educrats try to change it to BCE/CE. Liberal bias voted down, once again.
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