Can Reason Save Texas?
Reason magazine is running a multimedia series, “Reason saves Cleveland.” One of the episodes is titled “Fix the Schools.”
After Reason is finished saving Cleveland from urban decline, I propose that staffers head out to the Lone Star state and save Texas from theocrats, who have hijacked the public school curriculum. Nor is that abomination an isolated event, as this anecdote from Daniel Czitrom, a college history professor, suggests. Interestingly, Czitrom seems to believe that the Texas Board of Education’s motivation to rewrite American history springs from something other than just ideology or religion:
Many conservatives are simply unwilling to accept how much the writing and teaching of American history have changed over the last 40 years. They want an American history that ignores or marginalizes African-Americans, women, Latinos, immigrants and popular culture. They prefer a pseudo-patriotic history that denies the fundamental conflicts that have shaped our past.
Surely Reason magazine, which examines all manner of pseudo-science and political correctness, would have something to say on the latest textbook wars in Texas, especially since the implicatons extend well beyond the state’s border. But there’s not even a mention of it on Hit & Run, the magazine’s popular blog. Maybe there’s a “Reason saves Texas” production already in the works…
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